


he can't find a saw

by v3ilfire



Series: i fought the war, but the war won [1]
Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-15
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-05-20 18:26:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 21,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6020380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/v3ilfire/pseuds/v3ilfire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a series of fenhawke drabbles & tumblr prompt fills.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. hand over heart

**Author's Note:**

> THIS HAS BEEN ACCIDENTALLY DELETED T H R E E TIMES NOW. THREE TIMES I HAVE ACCIDENTALLY DELETED THIS WORK. END MY SUFFERING. anyway here's wonderwall.

“Do they hurt?”  
Fenris watched Hawke examine the skin visible between the straps and metal of his gauntlets, her hold gentle on his hand as she turned it this way and that. The question had come out of nowhere, there, in the dimness of his acquired mansion. He could see the goosebumps rising on her skin even though the fire flickered lazily behind them; white skin in the soft glow. The light clung to the edges of all her scars, each a reminder of the path she’d chosen - or, more likely, been thrown onto.

“Yes.” Hawke made some noise that barely left her throat, indistinguishable. Slowly, her hands began to work at the gauntlets, peeling them off of him piece by piece, laying them both next to her thigh. Soon, his exposed hand was palm-up atop hers, lyrium veins curled gently with his fingers.  
“Is that better?”  
“Yes.”  
“I know you like being – what was it Varric called you? An angsty porcupine? But… have you ever considered getting some house clothes?”  
"When did Varric call me an angsty porcupine?"  
"Doesn't matter. Forget I told you that." Frankly, Fenris could not imagine himself in anything other than heavy armor, not like Hawke who walked around her empty mansion in a crimson robe and slippers, careful to tread silently as to not disturb the ghosts."

“I believe that may be more your area of expertise," he said after a pause. Hawke laughed. She placed her free hand over his, her eyes flicking up to check his unchanging expression.  
“Does that make it worse?”  
“Yes… and no.”  
“Meaning?”  
“It reminds me of your presence.”  
“What? The glow when I enter the room isn’t enough for you?” Fenris snorted.  
“Are you referring to the fires you generally leave in your wake?”  
“I was thinking more of my shining wit, but those do add to my image.” The elf removed his hand from hers, and instead moved it slowly to cradle the side of Hawke’s face. She leaned into his touch, though hesitantly at first, her eyes drooping half-closed.  
“I have grown accustomed to the pain.”  
“That’s not reassuring.”  
“I…want you near me. That is more than I could say about anyone. And that is my decision.”  
Hawke’s gaze was broken briefly by a blink, and her solemn composure shattered by a soft snort and a lift of the brow.  
“Well, alright then. I won't argue against that." 

 

  



	2. in good hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hawke goes missing, aveline goes looking.

Aveline woke with a start to the tune of heavy knocks on her door, someone's frantic voice. She groaned against Donnic's shoulder, and peeled herself away from her husband's warmth, cursing Hawke's name in the process. 

"One of these days I'm going to shove my boot  _so_ far up her ass..." 

She was rather surprised to find, however, that the frantic voice in the dead of night did not belong to the Champion of Kirkwall and her dire need for late-night escapades. Instead, it was her manservant, plagued by a look of utter panic. "Bodhan?"   
"I am  _terribly_ sorry for waking you, Guard-Captain, but ... Messere Hawke ..."   
"What's going on? Where's Hawke?"   
"Orana had gone upstairs to check on Messere - she had taken ill - and she was  _gone_."   
"Where did she go? Are you sure she left?"   
"We searched the entire estate! My boy and I had been cleaning in the cellars, and the hound was asleep. Nobody saw her leave. I am sorry for waking you, but -" Aveline rubbed the bridge of her nose; her headache from earlier was beginning to stir in her temples again.   
"No, I appreciate you coming to get me. Go back home, Bodhan. I'll find her." 

The late-night search party consisted of only Aveline and Donnic, but their first bet and best lead was to venture to the Hanged Man. Aveline had become an expert in dodging the drunks and ignoring the guardsmen who cowered and hid their faces from her stern shadow in the pungent tavern, which made it significantly easier to make a beeline towards Varric's suite.   
"Varric. Have you seen Hawke?" The dwarf looked up from what looked to be a rather intense game of cards between himself, Isabela, and a few of the more drunken patrons that the pair of swindlers were intent on robbing blind.   
"I know that tone, Aveline. What did she do this time?"   
"… So you haven't seen her?" 

It was very rare to see anything but mirth across Varric's face, but the Guard-Captain was fairly sure she caught just a hint of worry. She saw it on the poxy tart, as well.   
"Not since she came here this afternoon."   
Aveline sighed. The  _one_ night Hawke did not end her escapades at he Hanged Man.   
"Stay here. Keep an eye out for her. Tell her to come find me if she turns up and I'll beat some sense into her."   
"Consider it done." 

The next stop, Darktown. The lit lantern was not difficult to find. Entering the clinic inconspicuously? A bit harder. Anders did not seem horribly pleased to see the two guards in his domain either way.  
"Here to arrest me at last?"   
Aveline caught his eyes darting towards his staff. His animosity annoyed her, but at the very least the woman had come to expect it, and was getting far better about overlooking it.  
"I'm looking for Hawke, Anders. Have you seen her?" The change in his demeanor was immediate. His worry was far more blatant than his anger.  
"Not since yesterday. Why?"   
"Bodhan says she's gone."   
  
Anders's mouth flattened itself, his jaw tensed. He hadn't seen Hawke since the day before, but everyone had been noticing the increasingly darker circles underneath her eyes, the way her face fell anytime she thought no one was looking. His mind immediately jumped to the worst conclusions; his stomach clenched with fear. She did not cope well with her mother's death.  
"No. I haven't seen her. Do you need help looking?"   
Aveline shook her head.   
"I need you to stay here in case she shows up. Donnic and I will find her, Anders. Not to worry." 

Hawke was not at home. Hawke was not in the Hanged Man, or in Anders's clinic. Hawke was also not in the Alienage with Merrill. She was not at Gamlen's, or leaving a trail of corpses in the streets.  
"I'm sure she's fine, love," Donnic assured the Guard-Captain, who was running out of haunts to add to her list.  
"Are you sure it's Hawke you're thinking of? She hasn't been _fine_ since I met her." Their two-man search party was starting to run out of options. They had looked everywhere, except...

Unsurprisingly, Fenris was awake in the dead of night. He answered Aveline's sharp knocks in his usual untimely fashion, though he seemed surprised by her presence. Aveline was not exactly the first person who he thought would show up on his doorstep at odd hours.   
"Is... something wrong, Aveline?" Judging by the look on her face, there was.    
"Bodhan says Hawke is missing. Please, tell me you've seen her."   
"She is inside. I was not aware she left without saying anything." 

The elf held the door open for the guardsmen, and then retreated once more into the darkness of his home, towards the lone flicker of firelight at the top of the stairs. Aveline felt the rage beginning to boil in the pit of her stomach as she followed him, trying her best not to let the feeling affect the weight of her steps or the force with which she marched. She expected Hawke to be there, drunk, sprawled on the floor, laughing hysterically. The woman prepared herself for a barrage of Hawke's ill-fated humor and her levity, but that was not what she received. 

It was hard to identify the lump of pillows and blankets by the fire as the Champion of Kirkwall at first, but Aveline caught sight of a shock of black hair and a white wrist peeking out from the piles of fabric. 

"I believe her nightmares are keeping her awake. She was... frightened when she came here," Fenris explained. By the look of him, he wasn't sleeping much, either.   
"Nightmares?" For all the time she'd known Hawke, this was the first Aveline had heard of nightmares. Fenris nodded.   
"She will not admit it. And, if she asks... I never mentioned it." 

\--- 

Aveline felt the exhaustion in her own bones as she stripped the armor off herself, and fell face-first into her bed for the second time that night. Donnic's arms found her underneath the covers once again, and they settled.   
"At least your friends are never boring."   
Aveline chuckled into his neck, her eyelids already heavy. She would not admit it, but she was relieved, though not half as much as Bodhan and the rest of their ragtag team of misfits appeared to be when she returned to spread the news.   
"Leave it to Hawke to give me trouble even in the dead of night."   
"At least she's safe, love."   
"I worry about her and Fenris, Donnic. For _three years_ -"   
"Hawke is in good hands. Fenris is a good man. And a  _gifted_ Diamondback player."   
_"_ " _Donnic._ "   
He laughed. Aveline sighed.

They let sleep take them, relishing the fact that, for once, everyone was safe, and all was quiet.

 

 


	3. second night / first morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> slept together twice, woke together once.

Sleep was never an easy thing for Fenris, and in recent years, Hawke found herself in the same boat. Both of them had countless tales of waking up in a cold sweat, or screaming, or with pulsating headaches and feelings of the room closing in all around them. They had at least something to say about every night they spent in Kirkwall, short of that one. 

It was the second time they had slept together, but the first that Fenris found himself in the unusual position of waking up next to someone else. It was still early enough for only the first rays of sun to filter through the high windows in Hawke's room and land on her blankets - _their_ blankets - warming only the spaces they cared to. Hawke herself was stark white against the crimson of her bed, her face half-shielded by a scarred arm and breathing calm in the silence of her usually active household. There were no jokes made from Bodhan, no stray whining or barking from the hound, no explosions from Sandal, not even Orana's timid footsteps. Nothing but the light rustling of sheets as he moved his arm to clear the dark hair from her face. 

The woman was so unusually still that he had time to notice all her little scars, the length of her eyelashes, the littering of freckles across her shoulders. The things she hid underneath leather and steel were exposed to him there, in faint sunlight. Fenris hesitated at first, but then allowed his hand to linger along her arm, to slide down her shoulder blade and rest on her waist. There was a sleepy groan from somewhere deep in her throat, and she shifted ever so slightly.  
"It's a bit early, don't you think?" 

Hawke rolled onto her back, her spine arching slightly as she stretched her arms, leaving Fenris's hand to rest on her stomach and trail slowly back up to her ribcage. He could feel his calluses graze against her bones and nick the scrapes and scars from more of her reckless encounters.  
"I didn't mean to wake you." 

With a sigh, she scoot towards him, still sleepy-eyed and smiling softly. Fenris pulled her the last bit of distance towards him, ignoring the whining from his lyrium markings in order to feel the warmth of another body on his own. It was not a comfort he had ever felt entitled to, let alone felt like he  _needed_.   
  
Luckily for him, Hawke quickly found her place with her head on his shoulder and her arm draped sloppily across his waist. She left a gentle trail of kisses along his jawline and nuzzled into her final resting place soon after, determined to remain still for the rest of the morning, if not the afternoon.   
"I'm going back to sleep, Fenris, and unfortunately for you, you make the best pillow in the Free Marches - heated and everything. So... I suggest you follow suit." There was a rumble from deep within his chest that made her grin widen.  
"Whatever you say... Champion." 

The comment earned him a playful nip on the shoulder, but he found that the kiss she pressed to the spot afterwards was well-worth it.


	4. one week

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hawke cannot go missing inconspicuously.

A week, and no one had heard from Hawke.

It was normal for her to disappear for a day or two, or for Aveline to lose track of her or to skip nights at the Hanged Man, but not once in seven years did she stay away from an entire  _week._ Every time someone came to her mansion, it was the same you-just-missed-her spiel from Bodhan, or a quiet apology from Orana; never a concrete update, never a straight answer. 

It was on the eighth day that Varric dragged both Fenris and Aveline out to go looking for their Champion. The sun was more of an obnoxious interruption to the seriousness of their mission than a pleasant reminder of a beautiful spring day.  
"Well, you haven't seen her, Aveline, and she hasn't been with the elf at all, but Bodhan keeps saying she's home every night. I expect this from Rivaini, I dread it from Hawke."   
Aveline groaned at the thought. Something this suspicious on a Hawke scale of trouble usually meant a catastrophe for her, but her reports had been oddly quiet, and her men complained far less of having to clean up corpses in Lowtown. For once in her life, Hawke was genuinely laying low. The Guard-Captain was scared to wonder why.

The trio began their search for answers at the Hawke estate. A plan had been hatched to be thorough, to pry any and all answers out of Hawke's trusty house staff even if it meant breaking in and investigating on their own. Bodhan opened the door with his usual too-cheery demeanor, standing to the side to allow the three to enter the fire-lit foyer.   
"I am terribly sorry, but Messere  _just_ stepped out again. She should be back later this evening."   
"She didn't tell you where she would be going?"   
It was the first time Varric heard Fenris speak since they had forced the elf out of the height of a broody, worried pique.   
"I'm afraid not. Messere has been rather - " The dwarf was interrupted by a sneeze so loud and so violent, it ricocheted off the walls of Hawke's bedroom and out into the vastness of the vaulted ceilings of the foyer. 

"Enchantment!" Sandal exclaimed, the first to break the silence.   
"Thanks, Sandal," came the hoarse, nasal reply from upstairs. 

The sounds of Varric and Aveline's raucous laughter beckoned Hawke rather begrudgingly out of bed. She groaned and sniffled her way to the railing, bundled up in layers of soft linen sleep clothes underneath her robe, her hair a messy bundle atop her head.   
"You've looked better." Hesta rolled her eyes at Aveline, resisting a crude gesture only because her arms seemed to weigh too much to lift .  
"My apologies, Messere, I've been keeping everyone away, like you asked, but -"   
"It's  _fine_ Bodhan. I would have been discovered sooner or later."   
"I will go see if Orana will put on some tea, then."   
"Much appreciated."

As Bodhan shuffled off to the kitchens, Hawke made her way down the stairs, wary of the way the room spun around her as she did so. "Congratulations. You've discovered my secret. I have... a cold," she said, her voice dripping with drama and a hoarseness that impaired her volume. "Now, leave, so I can go back to dying slowly."   
"Well, that's a shitty ending to my book," Varric laughed. "What happened to your sense of drama?"   
"Don't make me cough on you." 

It took an entire interrogation for Aveline and Varric to be satisfied enough to leave her to her misery, but Fenris stayed, dutifully silent.   
"You know, brooding won't make me get better any faster," she said, nearly interrupted by a fit of violent coughing into her elbow.   
"You disappeared for an entire week, Hawke."  
"Correction, I  _slept_ for an entire week."  
"Perhaps a word, next time," the elf sighed. Hawke laughed, but it seemed that the Maker smiled upon Fenris that day, because the sound quickly dissolved into yet more coughing. She would not get her levity that day.  
"Oh, Maker's  _tits,_ " Hawke cursed once her breath returned. "I swear, Fenris, I help you kill one magister and suddenly you've gone soft on me. I prefer the brooding." Fenris sighed over more of her hacking, if only to hide a grin.   
"Upstairs," he said. "Now."   
"I appreciate your directness and I'm _really_ into the commanding thing, but can we save it for when I'm not a snotty mess?"   
" _Hawke._ "   
"Oh, fine! You never let me have any fun." Hawke whipped around, though apparently a little too fast given that Fenris had to steady her, and marched her way upstairs with all the ferocity of a petulant child denied her dessert. 

She was more than halfway to a restless sleep when the elf entered her chamber, a tray with tea and toast in hand. "Never pictured you the domestic type," she rasped, but when the tray was presented to her, sat up obediently and began to nibble at the toast. In the meantime, Fenris stalked over to her fireplace and threw more logs at the dying flames. She watched the elf work with fever-heavy eyes, though with no lack of curiosity. "You're too quiet. It's making me nervous."  
"I'm always quiet."  
"No, you're always brooding. Difference."   
"I was worried, Hawke." The confession came with a heaviness of something new and not yet sure, a frequent tone since their recent reconciliation. He was sure of his feelings but never quite how to convey them, always fumbling with words too raw or too veiled.   
"Well, I knew that."  
"No," he said as he stood, reluctant to face the woman. "I don't imagine that you did." 

She understood, of course. Disappearing for a week without a word, leaving only her servants to make lame excuses for her absence as she slept and vomited her way through what little life she had left.   
"I didn't want to bother you," she admitted. "I'm not used to... this."    
Neither was he. "I was afraid you'd taken on something reckless by yourself."  
"Not out of character, given past precedent."   
"I've come too close to losing you before. "  
"Near-death experiences aren't romantic to y--" She had been  _so_ determined to finish her sentence, but her throat had better ideas. Namely, coughing. "Kill me," she said at the end of it, "just end it now."   
Fenris chuckled as he walked back to the bed and lifted the tray of half-eaten toast and nearly untouched tea, only to set it on her nightstand.  
"Ask me again tomorrow." 


	5. shattered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> mirror, meet rage.

It had only been three days. 

  
Three days since Danarius' heart flopped onto the floor with a splat, since Varania, since his lips curled around the word, 'free' and tried to claim it. He was a _free man_ , whatever that meant, and free men were allowed to want- it took three years for him to learn that. Luckily for Fenris, the object of his desires was as willing to be subjected to them as she had been three years prior, and he very suddenly found himself not only free, but also  _spoken for,_ though as far as words went, the phrase seemed insufficient. He was somewhere in-between  _taken_  (both by her and with her) and  _in love_  (which he would openly admit, were he not so afraid). 

Semantics aside, Hesta had made it clear long before their reconciliation that he was welcome in her home, as a friend or otherwise. So, at Varric's suggestion, Fenris made his way over to the Hawke estate to check up on its owner, who had rather suspiciously missed their weekly game of Wicked Grace. Fenris tried to quell the buzzing in his head as he rapped on the door, tried not to be suspicious of the timing of her absence, to find himself its cause. Luckily for him, Bodhan opened the door before his mind could get away from him, but the dwarf's jolly disposition was replaced by a look of anxiety. 

"Hello, ser," he started, his voice shaky. "Messere has just returned, but perhaps now is not the best --"   
He was interrupted by a loud shattering noise and a string of curses that could make a Grey Warden blush. Without another word, Fenris slipped past Bodhan and made his way upstairs, his approach masked by Hawke's rather creative interpretations of Andraste's wardrobe and the Maker's private bits. She trailed off by the time he entered her chambers, growing eerily silent in the wake of all that noise. 

Fenris found her sitting on the ground with her head in her hands, the frame of her mirror tipped to the side and the glass shattered around her, pieces of it covered in blood. He picked up on the tremble in her shoulders almost immediately, and found himself rendered entirely useless in her doorway. He had seen her cry before - it was  _extremely rare_ , but not unheard of - but that didn't mean he was ever prepared for it. Moving almost against his own will, the elf toed chunks of glass aside on his way to her. He knelt next to the ball she had made of her own frame, but she did not lift her head from her palms. He noticed her hands first - the knuckles,  _destroyed_ , bone showing through in parts. One - he assumed the one that made dust out of her mirror - was far worse than the other, though both were bleeding and bruised.   
"Are you alright?"  
The question was stupid in hindsight. She was clearly  _not_  alright, perhaps the farthest thing from alright, and she would probably lie about it.  
"I'll be fine," she rasped. "The mirror? Not so much." 

Fenris couldn't stop the half-chuckle before it escaped from his throat. He regretted it as soon as Hawke's body tensed in response, her teeth entrenched in her lower lip as she choked back a sob. Without thinking, Fenris pulled her into his chest, but the gesture felt clumsy to him, insufficient. He couldn't tell if his arms were in the right place, or if he was holding too tight, but as soon as her head was buried in his chest he stopped caring. He held her as she cried, her sobs eventually dulled by a lack of both air and energy, and soon replaced by a breathless laughter.   
"Maker, I'm a mess," she muttered into the metal of his breastplate. When she sat up, she nearly had to peel her face from it, wiping underneath her eyes with the back of her less-injured hand. She  _was_  a mess - her makeup running down her cheeks, cutting streaks through the blood and grime, a red streak running across her nose where her hand had just been. The state of her face didn't hold a candle to her knuckles, but he couldn't figure out if that was a good thing or not. 

It took a lot of hot water, nearly an hour, and help from both Bodhan and Orana, but eventually Hawke became recognizable once more. Bodhan had cleaned up the glass, allowing the woman to prod about her bedroom barefoot as she wrapped her sore and bleeding hands in bandages. Fenris watched her the entire time, not failing to notice that every time she left the room, she came back with her eyes more bloodshot than before.   
"Did something happen?" he asked finally.  _Was it me?_  
"The mirror was rude to me. I reacted accordingly."

She knew her deflection was weak. It mattered little.  She had not expected Fenris to sink into silence, however. He was surprised to find that it made her nervous, caused her hands to find each other in front of her, her eyes to sink to the ground.   
"I... don't know what came over me. I'm sorry. It's been a long week." 

This was Hawke, and yet not. It  _was_  Hawke, but it was more Hesta - stripped bare of her jokes and her bravado, all raw hurt and tired eyes. Fenris did not realize how intently he was staring at her until she returned his gaze with a lifted brow.   
"You're quiet."   
"Why did you apologize?"   
"What?"   
"You apologized a moment ago. Why?" 

It was Hesta's turn to stare, to be at a loss for words.   
 _Because it's my fault._  

"I -"   
She choked on her own sentence, the tears coming back so suddenly that she did not have time to run and hide in her bathroom. She started to catch them herself, but Fenris was up and before her at a moment's notice, his thumbs clearing her just-washed cheeks so that she didn't have to.   
"Maker's saggy left tit," she cursed, laughing, somehow. "Just look at me. What a disaster." Fenris smirked in return, his hands cradling her face, and she relaxed, if only for a moment.  
"You will make it through this." 

Hesta was shocked into stillness once more by his words. She was used to the questions -  _will you be alright? Can you do this? Are you sure?_  But there was something in his tone, a certainty that crept into her bones and filled her lungs, and she stood straight again.   
"Yes, sir," she breathed. "Keep talking like  _that_  and you'll find yourself in a state of undress faster than Varric can bullshit his way out of going to a Merchant's Guild meeting."   
Unconvinced by her levity, Fenris brought her face to his and kissed her, slow and sweet and sure. He felt her trembling arms wind their way about his back and she pressed herself against him, breaking their kiss only to lean her forehead on his shoulder.   
"I just need some time," she whispered. "Just today."   
Fenris held her to himself, pressing a kiss to her temple.   
"Then you shall have it." 

Hesta yelped as he swept her clean off her feet and carried her to her bed, where he deposited her. She did not hesitate to burrow herself in her blankets and multitude of pillows, leaving only her head to peer out into her room. Fenris watched her eyes dart to her door, and then back to him, almost sheepish.   
"Will you stay? ... You ... don't have to. But I'd like that."   
Without a word, Fenris began unclasping the metal plating of his armor, placing each piece neatly on the chair by her writing desk. It was strange not to feel any pressure or guilt or dread about such an action - only a sense of willful duty. This was his life now, this was  _his,_ and he  _wanted it_. He wanted to stay, wanted her, wanted to make the palpable ache in her chest disappear, and that was scary, but it was  _good._ And he could live with good. 

Once down to his tunic and leggings, the elf crawled into the piles of plush bedding and found himself immediately pulled into an embrace, Hesta's legs entwined with his and her face buried in the crook of his neck. With a sigh, Fenris looped his arm around her waist and pulled her even closer, not even a little surprised that the signs of sleep were already beginning to creep onto her face.   
"Bodhan!" she yelled, slightly muffled. "I'm not home today!"   
"Of course, Messere!" came the call back.

Hawke smiled against Fenris's shoulder, interrupted by her own yawn. Fenris reached up to stroke her hair, and within moments, the woman drifted off to sleep. Fenris watched her, finally at peace, her eyes still puffy and raw from crying and her skin paler than he'd ever seen it before. But she was safe, and she was with him, and the magister was dead, and without his own ghosts he could finally shoulder some of hers. It wasn't enough - to him, it would never be enough - but it would have to do.


	6. satinalia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt fill: halloween

“I will pass, Hawke.”  
“What are you going to do in here all day? Dance?” 

Fenris glared at the woman in his doorway, the mask covering her face doing a poor job of hiding a  _particular_  glimmer in her eye that usually signaled the arrival of her stubborn streak. Holidays left a bitter taste in his mouth - celebrations for the masters usually meant more work for the slaves. 

(And Danarius’ celebrations, in particular, involved a greater deal of pain and discomfort than he cared to think about.) 

“We have to show Merrill how to do Satinalia  _right_. Might as well show you how to have fun, too. Two birds, one stone kind of thing.” Hesta, as per usual, was relentless. Fenris heaved a heavy sigh and hung his head, his hand drawn immediately to the bridge of his nose, and he shut his eyes in hopes that this  _blasted_  woman was just an apparition. And yet, something drew him to his feet, some bizarre innate appeal in her, the  _lightness_  in her spirit. Her whooping cheer echoed through his empty halls, and so he was dragged into the midst of celebrations. 

Though the masks in Lowtown were less ostentatious than those in Hightown, they were just as bizarre and colorful. How Hawke managed to find their brood, he had no idea, especially given that her own face was covered by dyed crimson feathers and dark velvet, her nose a beak for the remainder of the day. She was, as per usual, not one to miss an opportunity for humor. Varric did not hesitate to point that out before greeting her.   
“Daisy and Rivaini are waiting inside. Mind your feet.” 

And the Hanged Man - it was almost  _too_ crowded, each of them amidst elbows and knees and struggling to find a corner in which to linger. Isabela called to them from the bar, her mask lavish and most likely stolen, gold and glimmering against her skin.   
“Look! I took Kitten shopping.”  
“Well, technically, you took me  _stealing_ ,” Merrill corrected, wearing a mask shaped to look much like a fox. “Isn’t it cute?”   
“Precious,” Hawke answered, pulling Fenris into their circle.   
“What about you, elf? Too busy brooding to partake?”  
“I’m surprised you weren’t too busy running your spy network to shop, Varric,” he quipped back. Varric laughed, adjusting the feathery monstrosity on his face.

“Ooh! What about gifts?” Merrill chirped. “I heard there were gifts!” Isabela laughed, pulling the elf in by the shoulders.   
“Oh, Kitten, you’re the only gift we need.”  
“I’ve got something,” Hawke chimed in, and reached into her pockets to pull out her coin purse. She whistled for the bartender. “Hey! A round of the good stuff for my usuals. And uh - that guy. That guy looks like he needs it,” she said, pointing to their favorite self-made poet. He had not noticed Isabela yet, evidently. 

Fenris picked up his mug and managed to scoot himself to the wall as the others indulged in dancing and celebrating and mingling, eventually taking the first free chair he could see. It was odd - there was no work to be done, no one was expecting him. He had not kept track of the holidays while on the run, had no reason to invoke those memories in himself when his dreams did that for him. Hesta interrupted his glassy-eyed trance by sitting down next to him, her cheeks already flush with a few rounds. “You’re brooding again.”  
“For the last time, I do not brood.”   
“You keep telling yourself that. We should have gotten you a mask that smiles. Something gold, maybe.” Fenris scoffed at the notion, though not in offense. Only at the thought at himself in anything quite so decadent.  
“Cat got your tongue?”   
“No. I’ve just nothing to say.”  
“What a shame. I do  _so_ like it when you talk. Ah - you smiled! Varric owes me a silver.” 

It took a surprising amount of willpower to set his face back into its default, scowling state, though he still felt a bit warm around the collar. The woman was, in general, quite the flirt - but her efforts seemed to be focused on him as of late. 

He couldn’t say he minded. 

“Perhaps next year I  _will_  wear a mask, and then you and Varric will have to find new ways to amuse yourselves.” Hesta laughed, but when she settled, her gaze unnerved him.   
“Hm. I wonder,” and she reached up to untie the bow at the back of her head. Before Fenris could react, the mask was over his face, still warm from her, smelling of the oils she put in her hair. Her face was too close to his as she tied the ribbon, her gaze too warm - from the ale or from something else, it was hard to tell - and her hands too gentle for a woman who knew little else than the grip of a knife.

He felt her knees against his too acutely, the brush of her arm against his. It sent his skin into gooseflesh against his own will, and suddenly he was too aware of the scars on her temple and the length of her eyelashes and the way her hair spilled over her shoulder, pin-straight where it wasn’t damp with sweat from the heat in the pub. “I lied, scrap gold. Red suits you,” she said through a grin. “Let that be a gift from me to you. Happy Satinalia.” 

She left him still shell-shocked as she rose and went to find Isabela once more. 


	7. sway

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> based on the tumblr prompt, "do you wanna dance?"

“And now you owe me _five_ sovereigns, elf.” Fenris slumped back into his chair, a firm scowl plastered across his face to counter Varric’s winning grin. The dwarf’s swift hands gathered the cards again, and began to shuffle. 

The sharp scraping of wood against wood and the clink of metal was Aveline’s only introduction as she dropped herself into the chair next to Merrill, a heavy sigh already past her lips.  
“Deal me in, Varric.”  
“Tough day in the barracks?”  
“You don’t want to know.”  
“I’m surprised you’d rather blow off steam with us than with your husband. Anger makes _such_ an interesting bedfellow,” came Isabela’s purr from across the table.  
“Shut up, whore.”  A defeated exhale announced Anders’s arrival as he took his place beside Varric, exhaustion plastered across his brow.  
“Ancestor’s asses, Blondie, do you sleep?”  
“When I have the time. No Hawke tonight?” Merrill shook her head.  
“It doesn’t seem like it.”  
“I was supposed to check on her leg today. She must have forgotten.”  
“She’s been with Meredith all day. She came to see me in the barracks, and then went straight to the gallows.”

Varric dealt the cards to each player, and tossed his bet to the middle of the table.  
“That only means she’ll show up later and get drunker, faster. Until then, let’s play.” 

Contrary to consensus, Hawke never showed. Fenris had reduced his debt to only three sovereigns by the end of the night, and though his path back to Hightown was uninterrupted, he found it almost eerily quiet. It was rare to walk back without Hawke’s raucous laughter bouncing off every stone in their vicinity, alerting every crook to their presence. Against his better instincts, Fenris soon found himself standing in the Hawke estate, struggling to hear Bodhan over the dog’s excited barking.  
“Messere just returned from meeting with the Knight-Commander. Would you like me to let her know you’ve come to visit?”  
“That won’t be necessary,” he said as he knelt down to pet the attention-hungry mabari. 

Fenris found Hawke in her room, sitting on the edge of her bed, a bottle of wine in her hand despite the fact that she was still fully-armored.   
“You missed Wicked Grace.”  
“Who won?”  
“Unsurprisingly, Isabela.” Hesta flashed a smile, but then brought the bottle to her lips and took a swig of the wine, ignoring the dryness it left in her mouth. She offered it to Fenris as he took his place next to her and he obliged, glad to taste something other than Aggregio.

“I hate this city," she said while he took his swig.   
“I’m surprised to hear you say that, since you keep bleeding for it.” Hesta's laugh came fractured as she stood and began to unclasp the plating on her arms.  
“I hate this _city_ , Fenris. That doesn’t mean it’s not full of people who don't deserve to live in it."   
“You know, it isn’t your job to protect them,” he said. She responded with a bitter grin.  
“Well, it wasn't  _before_." 

Having finally decided to get a little more comfortable, Hesta waved the wine away and instead began working at the buckles of her armor. Soon she pulled the breastplate over her head and moved to her legs, chucking each piece towards the stand in the corner of the room. The dog's barking turned her attention towards the door.  
“He’s been like that all night. I think it’s because Aveline didn’t take him to the barracks today.”  
“He’s not the kind of hound meant to be locked in a house.”  
“Can you imagine what would happen if I let him loose in Hightown? It would be _amazing_. I might just do it.” 

Hesta stared at the growing pile of plate in the corner of the room and decided she was far too tired to put it back in its usual place. Once he realized she wasn't about to move from the bed, Fenris offered her the bottle again. She took it straight to her mouth.  
“What did Meredith want?”  
“To pit me against Orsino. And then Orsino wants to pit me against Meredith. The whole thing felt like they were trying to sell me something foul-smelling and overpriced. Like an Orlesian cheese.”  
“Did either succeed?” She shook her head, the wine in her mouth delaying her response.  
“I don’t trust either of them. Meredith’s insane, and I think Orsino is trying to start an uprising. Bethany is the only reason I’m paying this much attention to either of them.”   

The sound of breaking glass downstairs was followed by Bodhan’s agitated bellow.  
“Would somebody _please_ calm that dog?” Almost immediately, the plucking of a lute crept up the stairs, slowly easing the scampering of a very excited Nug and, unintentionally, some of the tension in the Champion's shoulders. 

“I see Orana is doing well under your care,” Fenris said, after a moment. Hesta nodded, taking yet another sip from the bottle.  
“It took me a month to get her to stop calling me master, but I’m glad we found her when we did.”  
“As am I." Hesta turned to find the elf smiling at her, and she couldn’t help but return it. “Do you want to dance?”  
“ _What_?” She had convinced herself that she was hearing things, but Fenris quietly stood and extended a hand to her. “Since when do you _dance_?”  
“I learned in Tevinter. Another party trick, unfortunately. I think I’d be back there now if not for a woman who made it her job to stick her nose in everyone's business.” Hesta rolled her eyes, but took his hand anyways. Fenris pulled her to her feet and placed a hand on her waist as she rested hers on his shoulder. They began to sway in time to Orana’s gentle tune; stiffly at first, but they eased into it. Eventually, Hesta's head found its usual spot in the crook of his neck and she relaxed, all the evidence of a long day dissipating into the air as she let herself mold into the elf's grip. She was nearly  _asleep_ by the time he spoke again. “I think the better question is, since when do _you_ dance?”   
“My father taught us when we were young, as a gift for mother. He said it’s how he wooed her in the first place.”  
“I guess some things just don’t run in families.”  
“Handsome _and_ charming. What a catch.”  
“I do my best.”


	8. hobbies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> everyone needs 'em.

Of all things Fenris did not expect, waking up alone in a bed that wasn't his was rather high on multiple lists of unlikely situations. The last time he was aware, Hawke was sprawled away from him, nearly falling off the bed, draped in nothing but a sheet and complaining bitterly of 'Maker-damned Kirkwall heat' and  _definitely_ something about it feeling like 'the underside of Andraste's sweaty tit.' And there, in the dead of night, she was gone. 

Fenris peeled himself from the mattress, the air in the room stifling and sticky enough to even  _his_ Tevinter-conditioned body to be bothered. He ran his hand through his hair, having to keep damp locks from clinging to the back of his neck. He found his leggings in the same heap as his armor, though he had to struggle to get them on. He searched for his tunic in the same heap, but much to his surprise, it was not where he remembered tossing it; it wasn't like clothes were thrown all over the place the night before - it was too hot and Hawke was too tired to do anything more than take a cold bath and roll herself into her sheets. He had merely stripped to his underthings and passed out next to her, ignoring aching muscles and careful of the ointment on his feet to keep the rashvine itch at bay. 

The elf grunted to himself and gave up the search rather quickly. Neither Bodhan, Sandal, or Orana were the types to be up this late, anyway, and if it was up to Hesta, she wouldn't give a single damn if he wore clothes around her home or not - in fact, he was pretty sure she preferred it if he didn't. Thus, he continued downstairs. 

The first floor of the house was surprisingly devoid of any signs of life, and Fenris was just about to panic when he felt a draft graze by his feet. Following it, he found that the back door to the terrace had been left open just a crack.

Upon acquiring the estate, the garden was a disaster. Overgrown where it wasn't dead and full of weeds, but over the years Bodhan managed to turn it around. He cleared the area and grew new shrubs, and with Orana's arrival came the flowers. At some point, Sandal blew a chunk off out of the earth and the Hawke estate found itself with a small pond where a few colorful fish now swam. Fenris found Hesta sitting at its edge, her hair swept atop her head and a damp towel over her neck and, as he should have guessed, his own tunic. He joined her in silence, the lyrium lines still gleaming a bit in the night-time. Hawke gave his arm a flick in place of a proper greeting.   
"It's too hot upstairs," she muttered, though her skin had already turned to gooseflesh in the cold air.   
"I agree. Couldn't find a shirt?"   
Hesta glanced down and laughed, having forgotten all about her choice of wardrobe.   
"It was the first thing I picked up. Not all of us have elf-y night vision." 

Fenris took the woman's arm by the wrist and, without warning, pressed it to her thigh.   
"It rather... accentuates... this." Hesta's mouth thinned - he was alluding, of course, to her sheet-white thighs in contrast to the slight golden tan forming around the scar tissue on her mangled hands.   
"Ah, yes," she muttered. "The curse of a farmhand."   
"You are far from any farmholds, Hawke." Hesta met his eyes with the same look Fenris often saw on Isabela when she saw something shiny. Needless to say, it worried him.  
"Actually..." 

Boxed in by shrubs and only accessed by fighting through some branches, Hesta lead Fenris by the hand to a tiny little crop of land she had asked Bodhan to section off for her. Much to his surprise, the little plot was well-cultivated and watered, and a fourth of it was already covered in little spouts.   
"Those are carrots," Hesta said, pointing, and then continued clockwise. "Those will be potatoes, beets, and strawberries for Orana. Bodhan is buying me a tomato plant tomorrow." Fenris was stunned. The two spent a lot of time together, especially as of late, and he never noticed her sneak away or do anything even resembling gardening. In fact, he often forgot she grew up away from the fineries of her house and wasn't always either in armor or a crimson robe, padding barefoot about her giant estate when Sandal didn't leave the place covered in debris. At some point, her hands were worn from work, and not from battle.   
  
"When... do you have the time?"  
"Oh, I don't. But everyone has to have a hobby, no? Not all of us can dance the night away alone in our mansions." Hesta got a chuckle for that one. She couldn't admit that the mental image of her now-lover prancing through his mansion and around the corpses cured many of her more foul moods.  
"How much time do you spend here?"  
"Oh, a few hours in the early mornings here or there. Bodhan helps. He's the only one who knows about it." Fenris was surprised.  
"Not even Varric?"  
"Are you kidding? He'd put it in his stupid book and I'd never hear the ending of the poor farm girl pining for her own plot of land back home. And if you tell him, you are never getting your shirt back again." At that, Fenris pulled her in by the waist against her protests and planted a kiss on her cheek.  
"Then we're in agreement. I do rather like that shirt."   
"Well then, you're gonna fight me for it." 


	9. held

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tumblr prompt fill for, 'cuddling.'

He found her hunched over her writing desk, asleep, quill still in hand. Bodhan alluded to it being the second time that week. Fenris was not surprised. The fact that he could pull her arm about his shoulders and pull her up was a testament to her exhaustion. She barely budged as he looped an arm behind her legs and lifted her effortlessly.

“Ah - thank you, messere,” Bodhan exclaimed before he began fussing over the desk.  
“Think nothing of it,” Fenris said, and made his way up the stairs.

He laid Hesta on the bed and stripped her of her armor, ignoring the slight moans of protest. Her weapons made their way back to the rack, her plate onto the stand. He unlaced her boots and removed the chain mail, untied her hair and covered her with a blanket. Fenris was already on his way out when she finally spoke.  
“All that effort and you’re not even going to read me a bedtime story?” He turned, and she lay smiling, still sleep-hazed and clearly exhausted. She pat the spot next to her with a heavy hand.  
“You need to rest, Hawke.”  
Her smile faded immediately, and her head rolled toward the opposite side.  
“I swear to the Maker, it’s Hawke this, Hawke that –”  
“Hesta.” She shut her eyes and sighed, the sound of her first name a rare enough thing to still her.

The bed shifted under the elf’s weight when he climbed over her, his armor shed quietly near hers. Fenris drew the Champion in and she molded against his side with her face tucked into the crook of his neck. “What did Meredith want this time?”  
“Mm. The usual. She wants me to publically support the Templars. Run errands. Things of that sort.”  
“And your reply?”  
“Bodhan had to convince me not to send a flaming bag of shit to her doorstep.”  
“That would be inadvisable.” Hesta laughed, and soon one of her hands found his and she wove her fingers into his grip. Fenris brought the entanglement up to his face and left a kiss on the scarring over her knuckles. Once they settled again, they remained perfectly still. He did not realize how tired he himself was until the warmth began to pull him under. Hesta was still awake when his breathing slowed. She lay in perfect stillness, letting sleep take her slowly, enjoying the rare feeling of being warm and safe and content. 

She was on the brink of sleep when a knock echoed through the estate. She did not have to get up to know who had the gall of sending a messenger so late at night. With a heavy sigh, Hesta was halfway out of the bed when Fenris yanked her right back down by the waist.  
“I have to –”  
“No.” She stared at him, blinking, wide-eyed.  
“But –”  
“No. If you leave, I’ll be cold.” It took a minute for the shock to dissipate, but then Hesta laughed again and flopped back down into her spot, snuggling in even closer than last time.  
“Congratulations, you’ve subdued the Champion in less than ten words. Someone ought to give you a medal.”  
“You are worth far more to me than that.”

He was already asleep by the time the words registered. Hesta smiled, squeezing his hand, and followed not too long after that.

The messenger came again in the morning. She did not even stir.


	10. snowball

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt fill for, "don't you dare throw that snowball!"

Winters in Kirkwall did not affect Hesta at all. They were a watered-down parody of southern Ferelden frosts, blistering winds, and the early morning challenge of having to force your door open against three feet of snow. A small dusting of fluffy flakes and a drop in temperature was nothing to her, except maybe an inconvenience if her shoes slid on ice-glazed pavement.

(The summers were a different story. Kirkwall was, in essence, a brick oven.)

They were on their way to Lowtown, walking from the freshly-acquired Hawke estate down to the Hanged Man, and while Hesta and Merrill seemed just fine with the temperature (Merrill in particular enjoying the fact that she had reason to wear the oversized scarf Isabela had given her), both Varric and Fenris seemed in a right mood to gripe.

“Andraste’s ass, it gets colder in this damn city every year.”   
“You said that last year, Varric, and it was just as cold. In Ferelden –”  
“In Ferelden, you all get a mandatory dog at birth to keep you warm through the hellish, tits-up freezing bullshit weather. The only good thing about it is that you can’t smell all the dog and mud when it’s cold out.”  
“Nug smells just fine, thank you.”   
“I still can’t believe you named your war dog _Nug_ , of all things.”   
“I think it’s cute,” Merrill chimed in. “He does look a little like a nug, if you squint hard enough.”  
“No amount of squinting is going to get me to think he’s cute, Daisy – hey!”

A snowball just narrowly missed Varric’s head, smacking instead into the wall behind him. The child who threw had been aiming at their friend - presumably the one running away screaming and giggling.

“Damn kids,” Varric grumbled as he dusted the arm of his jacket off. He looked back up just in time to be pelted with a snowball, right to the chest. Hesta was already tossing another in her hand, a mischievous grin playing at her mouth. Fenris automatically took a step to the side, his scowl well-hidden behind two scarves, though the way he crossed his arms was a dead giveaway as to his mood.  
“Hawke,” he grumbled. “Don’t we have places to be?”  
“Nu uh,” she said with a shake of the head. “We go nowhere until you two grumpy pants have some fun. You’re not allowed three months of complaining about a little bit of snow.”

Merrill clapped her hands together eagerly and then bent to gather some snow and begin to ball it up.  
“Oh, I haven’t done this since I was a child. You always have the best ideas, Hawke.”  
“See? Merrill appreciates me.”  
”Listen, Hawke, don’t you dare throw that snowba–”

Varric put both hands up and made the mistake of looking to Fenris for some sort of support. The aforementioned snowball smacked him right in the cheek.

“Alright, Hawke, now you’re dead.”

Merrill’s excited squealing (and her unsurprisingly poor aim, especially if her casting was a testament to anything) provided ample cover for the other three to sneak around. Rather predictably, Fenris stepped into an alcove, well out of the way of the sheer force of assault that Hawke and Varric unleashed. Nearly a year he’d been around them, and for the duration of that entire year, he questioned their desire to act like children. After what seemed like forever, the fray seemed to have quieted in the midst of his brooding, enough so that he could finally take a step back out into the open.

The silence was suspicious.

Fenris had to duck out of the way as Varric popped out - seemingly out of nowhere - and chucked a snowball just past his head.

“Damn it, elf!”

He was on his way to bite back when Hawke ran past him.

Well, tried to run past him, anyway. She made it about three paces before her feet flew up to where her head just was, and the impact of her back on the ground was barely muffled by the snow. Her wheezing gasp broke the silence, the air having been knocked right out of her.

“Hawke!”

She was surrounded by her three companions within a moment, though Varric was less concerned than he was trying his best to hold back laughter.

“Hesta Philomena Hawke, do you yield?” he said pointedly. Merrill shot him a look, and was on her way to say something when the wheezing turned into coughing and, subsequently, laughter.  
Merrill was the only one left with even a shred of concern as Hesta pulled herself up to sit and then to her knees, swiping in Varric’s direction as soon as she could free a hand.  
“I yield, I yield.”

Fenris sighed underneath his scarves, glad that the layers of fabric were masking just a semblance of a grin; Hawke wouldn’t let him hear the end of it if she had seen. He bent at the knees to help her up to her feet, but before he could grab onto her arms, Hesta tried to stand upright and slipped on the same patch of ice. Had Fenris not caught her, she would have brought both of them down. Varric snorted.  
“Get it together, would you? Gonna knock the elf over.”

A combined effort allowed Hesta to get back onto her feet and to begin dusting herself off. Merrill was helping Varric (who had taken the majority of the hits in their skirmish) do the same.

Fenris stood awkwardly beside Hawke, something inside him just skewed enough to bother him, and was on the verge of trying to reflect on it when a pile of snow found itself ruffled into his hair by Hawke’s hands.  
“Don’t think I didn’t notice you trying to not have any fun. Get ready. I’m coming for you next.”

Taking the dramatic option, Hesta turned with a flourish and began to lead the way to Lowtown once more. She had not, by any means, been expecting to be hit square in the back of the head by a snowball. She turned back towards Fenris, slow as ever, whose scarves couldn’t mask the fact that his smile hit his eyes.

“Challenge accepted, Hawke. I await your assault with baited breath.”


	11. unread/gift/donate/sell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> bodhan tries to make hawke clean. it's not too successful.

“Here, listen to this: ‘A noble knight of Starkhaven sets out to rescue his betrothed from the clutches of a rival in Kirkwall, but will his chance meeting with a sultry pirate queen be more than just a distraction on his journey?’” Fenris turned his attention from the book he held above his head in order to raise a brow at the one in Hesta’s hands.  
“Did  _Isabela_  write that?”  
“You know what, she might have.”

They were lying next to each other on the floor, Fenris on his back and Hesta on her stomach, propped up on her elbows. They were surrounded by piles and crates and boxes of books, all discovered on Bodhan’s inspired mission to clean out the cellars and sort through generations of useless Amell belongings. He figured the mistress of the house would at least want to take a look at the books before they were either sold, gifted, or donated (all at Varric’s discretion).

So, two hours and half a bottle of wine later, there they were.

“Put it in the ‘gift’ pile,” Fenris grumbled, as he returned to his skimming. “If she didn’t write it, she’d treasure it.” Hesta chucked the book to her right, into the smallest of the four piles (the ‘unread’ being, by far, the largest). She was only three words into skimming the description of the next one when Fenris nudged her arm with his elbow.  
“Hawke. Do you mind?” She leaned her head on his shoulder just as soon as she rolled onto her back and scoot back into her still-warm spot.  
“Where?” she asked, and followed his finger to the answer. “Ah, ‘soliloquy.’ What are you reading that throws the word ‘soliloquy’ around  _casually_?”  
“That… is a good question,” he muttered, and closed the book over his thumb to check the cover. “Evidently, an actor’s manual.”  
Hesta snorted as she flipped back onto her stomach and got settled. “Donate. I wish I knew we owned that book, I would have given it to Sister Petrice. She needed some help not being so overtly evil.”

He didn’t want to laugh at that, but the sound bubbled up before he could stop it. She smiled triumphantly down at him, and in return, he rolled his eyes.  
“You think I’m fu-nny,” she sang under her breath after a moment, eyes buried in the handwritten novel before her.  
“I think nothing of the sort,” he muttered, though through a grin. He got an elbow to the ribs for that.  
“Liar.”  
“I would never.”

The book she held was chucked aside (‘donate’), and was joined shortly by Fenris’s. With a sigh, Hesta reached her arm across his chest, fingers outstretched towards the half-full bottle that sat blatantly outside her reach. Fenris watched her inch forward until her upper body was practically draped across him, resigned to being a passive participant in her attempts. He’d have helped earlier if she wasn’t so hilariously pathetic about the whole thing.

“I can’t reach it,” she said, and flopped down, sighing into his tunic. Fenris merely had to scoot the bottle a few inches for her fingertips to be able to do the rest of the work, even with her head still buried into his ribs.

She sat up to drink, though, which he thought would have made her life infinitely easier if she had done the same in order to  _get_  the bottle. He would be annoyed if he didn’t find the lack of method to her madness bizarrely and intensely endearing.

Hesta did not get a chance to ease herself back down, for the moment that the bottle was safely on the floor again, Fenris’s arm caught her waist and pulled her down to lie on top of him. She laughed as she rearranged herself, her knees tucked underneath herself and one leg flush against his side. She crossed her arms on his chest and let her head settle there, smiling, eyes light. He stared back at her, unaware that his expression mirrored hers. The silence settled over them just as he realized he would have been content to never move again.

“What?” he asked, after a time.  
“Nothing.”

She moved to kiss him, slow and soft, one of her hands leaving its resting spot to move the hair from his face. He was left with a kiss on his cheek and forehead as well, before she settled back.

“What was that for?”  
“Felt like it,” she said, and that was reason enough for both of them.

When Bodhan found them, hours later, they were asleep on the floor, a mess of limbs and books and the bottle of wine empty and discarded next to them.

Aveline had brought the dog back, and had wanted to see Hawke, but the dwarf knew no reason sufficient enough to wake them, as they were, and so he closed the door. He owed her that.

 


	12. belongings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt fill for, "moving in together"

“Hawke, you’re not gonna find it.”

Hesta sighed, her brows furrowed as she scanned her room for the umpteenth time.  
“You don’t just _lose_ a shirt, Varric. Well, you might, but you’d do it on purpose.” The dwarf snorted.  
“You’ve lost bigger things, I’m sure. Now, everyone’s waiting to kick your ass at cards at the Hanged Man, so will you come on?”  
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “No, you know what, I know where it is. I left with Fenris last time I was there.”  
“That’s what - three changes of clothes you have there now? And your blanket, your favorite mug, at least half of your pillows…”

Varric had been counting off the objects on his fingers until Hesta interrupted him.  
“If you have a point, I doubt you’ll count your way to it.”  
“I’m just saying, Hawke. Maybe you and the elf should think about consolidating a little bit.”  
“Odd advice coming from the man living in a tavern for a decade.”  
“Honestly? I’m just sick of waiting for you to find your shit all the time.”

—

Two nights later Hawke found herself at the stolen mansion - their ‘summer home’ as she began to lovingly refer to it in the last few months. They were laying in bed (his), surrounded by piles of crimson blankets and soft pillows (hers), halfway through a bottle of wine (his) and sufficiently drowsy as a result.

Idly, Hesta stroked the arm he had laid across her stomach, half-closed eyes unfocused and mind wandering to places she wished it wouldn’t, as it often did.  
“You seem restless.”  
“Isabela and I have a contest going about who can stay awake the longest. I believe I’m winning.”  
“Hawke.”  
“In my defense, that’s not a complete lie. I _am_ winning. She just doesn’t know there’s a contest.” Fenris met her grin with visible displeasure, but he couldn’t hold his scowl when she leaned in to kiss his forehead. “Don’t worry about it. I’m just waiting to snuff you with a pillow in your sleep.”  
“Oh, really?”  
“Yes. I think I need a new bedfellow. Hightown is used to you now, the rumors aren’t _nearly_ as saucy. I figured a murder would tide me over until I picked up, oh, I don’t know. Maybe a Qunari, or something.”  
“You don’t find it ironic that you would be exchanging someone from Tevinter for a Qunari?”  
“Fenris, irony is never lost on me.”  
“Do you realize the irony in the fact that, for as much as you talk, you never say anything?”  
“Ouch.”  
“What is keeping you awake?”

He couldn’t read her face as she stared at him. With a deep sigh, Hesta turned her eyes to the ceiling, minding the winding of the cobwebs as she tried to put words to the weird feeling in her gut.  
“Is there something you want? More than anything?”  
“Hawke.”  
“Hush, I’m leading into it. Humor me.”

Fenris blinked, losing himself to thought for a moment as his eyes wandered to the place where her pale fingers ran gossamer lines over his arm, so light that the lyrium merely buzzed at the sensation.

“All I ever wanted was my freedom. Danarius is dead, so … I am free. I also find myself with a roof over my head and food in my stomach, coin to spend when I must, a beautiful woman to keep in my company.” She chuckled. “I wish for nothing. I am content. Where is this coming from?”  
“I just feel… I don’t know. I feel weird lately.”  
“You’re always weird.”  
“And you’re always _so_ charming.”  
“You were saying?”  
“ _You_ interrupted. I was saying … you know what, nevermind. It’s stupid.”  
“It’s keeping you awake.”  
“Stupid things keep me awake all the time.”  
“We’ll both sleep sooner if you would just say it.”

Hesta sat up with a groan, gathering her knees to her elbows and sinking her head into her hands. Fenris let her collect herself until, suddenly, her hands sunk between her knees and she turned her head to look down at him.

“I feel out of place here.”  
“We could always go to your estate if you are un–”  
“No, no, not _here_ specifically. I meant in Kirkwall. In general.” Fenris blinked.  
“You… have lived here for seven years. You are this city’s Champion. And yet –”  
“I told you it was stupid. It’s… I don’t know. When we came here, we lived with Gamlen. The only reason Beth and I got the mansion back was because it was the Amell estate and mother just… ached for it. We thought getting part of her family’s history back would ease the blow with Carver.”  
“Did it?”  
“No. Because that’s when Bethany got taken. And now Mother is gone, and… it’s not _my_ home. It was my grandparents’, but I never met them. Most of my life, I thought they hated me. People here can call that house the Hawke estate all they want, but… it isn’t. The Hawke ‘estate’ burned down in Lothering when the Darkspawn came.”

She turned her head to the pile of still-burning coals in the fireplace. A silence settled between them, and when Hesta turned back, Fenris was still lying there, waiting. “You’re staring at me.”  
“So what do _you_ want, Hawke? More than anything?”

Hesta had to think about that. For all the times she thought herself in circles, night after night, she didn’t have a concrete answer for that question. She never had.  
“Quiet, for a start. I’m tired of solving the city’s problems.”  
“Is that all?”  
“Well,” she started. “I have a roof over my head. I’d like one that’s… I don’t know, _mine_. Just a little place somewhere with only what I need. But what I have is good for now. I have food to eat and I find myself in good company most of the time. I could do without the annoying elf that trails me around everywhere, but like I said, I’ll take care of that problem later tonight.”  
“Hawke.”  
“Oh, you know I think you’re pretty.”

She flopped back down onto the mattress, letting Fenris gather her back into his arms. She managed to tuck her head into the crook of his shoulder and sighed for the umpteenth time that night. “I’m overthinking all this, aren’t I?”  
“Yes.”  
“Well. Thank goodness you’re here to put me in my place.”  
“Can I ask what started all this?”  
“Varric thinks we should just move into the same house. Make things easier.”  
“And you said?”  
“I won’t give up my summer home. It’s quiet here, and Bodhan won’t let me decorate with corpses at the Estate. Plus, someone has to keep Aveline busy. Whatever will she do if she doesn’t have patrols to change around?”  
“I’m sure she’ll find plenty.”

Fenris was nearly asleep when he felt Hesta shift in his grip, her hand finding one of his in the now near-darkness.

“Hey. Are you still awake?”  
“Not willingly,” he muttered, letting her wind her fingers in between his.  
“Sorry. Nevermind, then.”  
“ _Hawke_.”  
“I’m happy where you are. Doesn’t matter what house we’re in or… wherever.”

He gave her hand a gentle squeeze, and she smiled against his shoulder. Fenris fell asleep knowing that, after all those years of knowing nothing but survival, he was lucky enough to end up with all he’d ever wanted.

 


	13. filling in

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt fill for, "abandoned places"

Varric’s low whistle echoed through the main foyer of the reclaimed Amell estate as the rest of their gathering spread thin through the room, twisting and reverent, each pair of eyes finding something different to cling to. Hawke was always one for first impressions - kicking in a door to a dusty mansion littered with slaver corpses did not fail to do the trick for her on that day.

“It’s even bigger in daytime, Hawke. What the hell did your family _do_?”  
“Not a lot, judging by the amount of money they had.”  
“You’re lucky I owe you a favor, or I’d rob you blind,” Isabela purred, her stare fixated on an ornate golden paperweight. Hesta grinned, her arms already hooked underneath a corpse and busily dragging him towards the back door, where Varric had paid someone to set up a cart. For _miscellaneous junk_ , of course - not everyone in Hightown needed to know about a mass of dead slavers taking up residence in the Amell estate. Or that they’d been alive as early as _recently_.  
“Help me get this done, Isabela, and I’ll tell my mother that Gamlen’s friends got grabby.”  
“Keep being _that_ charming, and I can find other things to get grabby with.” Anders snorted from the staircase. Aveline groaned.  
“Careful now, you’re making the ghosts of my ancestors blush.”

They were productive for all of ten minutes - a feat in and of itself. Hesta only noticed that Anders had wandered off when he returned in a frilly navy coat, patrolling the main foyer with an ivory cane. She could _feel_ Fenris rolling his eyes behind her.  
“I always thought having money would feel… less stiff around the shoulders,” he commented idly, adjusting the cuff on one of his sleeves.  
“I like the feathers better,” Merrill chirped down from the second floor.  
“I like you helping us drag these bodies better,” said Aveline with some _special_ level of bite, considering it was her turn to carry the damaged corpse by the arms and Hawke’s to lift the legs. Her partner-in- _not_ -crime had the gall to laugh - though, when didn’t she? 

Hesta and Aveline, motivated _mostly_ by their combined military efficiency (a thing woken in Hesta only by the Guard-Captain’s _scowling_ ), did most of the work on the main foyer and began to venture upstairs to investigate the bedrooms. 

“Please don’t burn my mother’s house down while I’m in the other room,” she said, eyeing Anders as she passed him on the stairs. He had managed to find a fur cowl that hid all but his eyes and a golden medallion that looked like it weighed more than his head. “ _Where_ do you keep pulling these things from?”  
“Closets,” he said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Hesta supposed he wasn’t _wrong_.  “For some reason, this one smells like ale and sadness.”

As Hesta came to find out, the upstairs was blissfully corpse-less. There were several bedrooms to choose from, though one was the largest of all, with huge windows curtained by heavy, luxurious drapery and a canopy bed to rival those she’d imagine in a palace from one of her father’s tall tales. Aveline took the first step into the space, smiling lightly in the threshold of her friend’s newfound fortune, but when she turned to face Hawke she swore she saw a fleeting glimpse of something far less than _joy_ on her face. It was gone too quickly to tell, however, and with a new grin on her face Hesta pushed her sleeves back further onto her arms, and barrelled towards the opposite corner of the room. 

“Well, I believe we’ve found mother’s new chambers. Let’s… double check them. I’d hate for her to find a new bedfellow dead on arrival.”Aveline did not feel enough cause for concern to pry, and so she assisted in the sweep without so much as a word. There were no corpses, thankfully, but they _did_ find an unfortunate invoice. Hesta sighed as she turned it over in her hands. “Those poor people. I wish we’d made it to them earlier.”  
“I’ll increase the patrols on the outskirts of town. If we’re lucky, we can still find them.”  
“Very benevolent of you, Guard-Captain,” Hesta said, jabbing the woman’s arm with her finger.  
“ _I_ have reason to be,” she answered in a tone more serious than the other anticipated. “But _you_ don’t. And yet –”  
“I’m a sword for hire,” Hesta laughed. “Nothing very benevolent in that.”  
“You came here to protect your family, and now you’ve taken in people that Kirkwall would chew up and spit right back out, and placed them under your protection. You could do a lot of good here, Hawke.”  
“I hate it when you try to make things into a _teaching moment_ , Aveline.”  
“I’m just saying. You’re benevolent, for a scoundrel.”  
“So long as I’m still a scoundrel.” 

While the rest of the party (hopefully) cleaned out the corpses downstairs, Hawke and Aveline continued to make their way through the rooms on the second level, leaving growing piles of linens and curtains to wash in their wake. By the time Aveline had to leave to resume her duties as Guard-Captain, they were both beginning to feel the weight of heavy drapery in their arms and backs. The Amells were nothing if not fond of huge, bolstered curtains. 

“I’m assuming the room in which you stockpiled pillows is the one you picked for yourself?”  
“Of course,” Hesta said, wiping her dust-covered hands on the sides of her pants as they walked back downstairs. “I thought I’d… put my mark _down_.” Aveline raised a brow at the emphasis. “Down. Get it? Like feathers?”  
“Oh, Maker.”  
“And another day my genius goes unappreciated.”  
“Goodbye, Hawke.” 

Hesta closed the door and turned to examine the scene. Anders - who had found ornate buckled boots thrice the size for his feet - and Isabela - who was rushing to put away her dagger - were giggling by the banister, and Merrill was trying to rid her palms of a thick coating of dust by a bookcase, looking around with wide, guilty eyes. Hesta was not surprised to find that the room looked much the same as when she left it.  
“Where is Varric? And Fenris?”  
“Back in the Hanged Man, and if we’re _lucky_ , back in Tevinter,” Anders answered, no longer muffled by the furs he had _somehow_ managed to get to settle underneath his chin.  
“That would be a shame. I do _so_ want to see what’s under all those spikes. But - I believe Varric had the right idea when he said he was done with manual labor for the day. Come, Kitten..” 

Hesta couldn’t very well stop them from leaving, but she _did_ manage to secure a loose promise from the trio that they _might_ come back the next day to help her tackle the cellars. A good thing, considering Bodhan was coming to help her do the dusting and the washing the day after, and her mother was fully set on being moved in and ready to throw a dinner party for all who helped during the week’s end. This schedule did not leave too much wiggle room to dally, unfortunately.

It would have been a schedule far easier to follow if Bethany and Carver were there to help, but that was a thought Hesta was very quick to push out of her mind.

As a child, she’d _loathed_ cleaning, but she was surprised how close the empty manor felt like to a home when she got down on her hands and knees to try and scrub the bloodstains from the floor, armed with nothing but a brush and a bucket full of suds. She tried to take her time and enjoy it while she could - there was no room for nobility to clean, especially not when Bodhan insisted on being their live-in butler, no matter how many times Hesta told him that Sandal practically saved himself. 

A manor with a servant and noble clothes, to boot. The whole affair made her miss tending to their little farm in Lothering so much, it hurt. The Amells might have been nobility, but she was a Hawke, and those did not come without calloused palms and dirt under their fingernails. She hoped her mother would understand that - but given the state of her since Bethany was taken, she had her doubts.

Hesta was startled from her nostalgic longing with a yelp when she entered the library, shocked to see an arm hanging down from one of the tall bookcases. Thankfully, it only took a moment for her to realize that the spiky appendage belonged to a familiar, _living_ body.

Fenris was woken by a harsh whistle, glad for the high bookshelves standing under even higher ceilings, all to ensure he didn’t hit his head upon waking. He looked down to see Hesta standing there, hands crossed over her chest.

“Enjoying your nap?”  
“The abomination was becoming bothersome,” he answered, and began to feel for the gap between the books in the second-to-last shelf with his foot.  
“So you climbed all the way up there? In a house with more bedrooms than people?”  
“It is quiet here.” 

Hesta did not press, only waited for him to return to ground level. 

“You’ve something in your hair,” she said once he was close enough for her to notice - well, whatever it was. A dust bunny, hopefully. “Do you mind?”

Fenris, still blinking sleep away, paused in the wake of the question. There stood Hawke, hand outstretched towards him, but stopping inches short. He’d never been asked for _permission_ to be _touched_ before \- not for something so small. There was a part of him that wanted to take care of whatever the problem was himself, but another was insatiably curious. And so he nodded. 

Fenris didn’t know what he expected, but her worn palm was gentle against his temple and as it swept back to rid his hair of whatever debris she’d seen there. The contact was quick and feather-light, and as soon as it was over, she returned her hand to rest on her hip. “Can’t have my guests looking like they actually _worked_ to be invited to our illustrious housewarming party,” she said. “Or, in your case, napped.”

He was unspeakably glad for a distraction when his eyes darted away from hers and found the huge golden statue looming over the fireplace, even if the thing brought a scowl to his face. Hesta followed his gaze to the imposing thing, though her disgust was far less dedicated than his seemed to be. 

“That is… a very interesting bit of interior decorating.”  
“It reminds me of statues of the Old Gods my master used to keep by all the doors, like cheap guard beasts.” Fenris lost himself to memory for just a moment, but it was long enough for him to feel Hawke’s eyes lock onto him. He turned to face her, and his rage dulled as suddenly as it took him. “What is it?” 

Hesta hummed, thinking. Silently, she approached the unlit fireplace, placing her palms on the dusty mantle to push herself upwards and take a perch at the foot of the golden monstrosity. She inspected something at its paws, flinching once when her hand touched the thick of a spider’s home.  
“Unfortunately, it’s bolted down and twice our size, or I’d suggest removing it. I hope it won’t keep you from visiting.” 

He felt her palm at his temple again, and suddenly the room grew warm.  
“I – no. It will not.”  
“Good. Now - everyone else has gone home. I suggest you do the same, because we actually have to _finish_ cleaning this place tomorrow. I’d like to be able to hide in my pillows by week’s end, you know.” 

He went home.

The next day, he returned. The statue didn’t seem to loom quite so high or grimace as fiercely when he passed it, and he didn’t know why.

Eventually, the house was clean - a combined effort of not only Kirkwall’s favorite (and according to Varric and Isabela, best-looking) vigilantes, but also Bodhan _and_ Sandal and, once all the evidence of blood and death was gone, Leandra herself. It was clean, smelling of the fresh lavender Merrill brought in a bundle for the housewarming party that Leandra _insisted_ they throw as a thank you for everyone’s efforts.

Hesta looked over the commotion in the foyer from the second floor, leaning on the banister. Her mother had forced her into a nice shirt and slacks for the sake of the dinner, and while the clothes felt odd against her skin and her room still too big, their house was full and bustling and loud and for a moment, felt like home.

“It was kind of your mother to invite us,” Fenris said as he leaned on the banister next to her. Even he had shed his spikes for the sake of not scaring Hawke’s mother.  
“I think she misses cooking for a lot of people. Gamlen only eats money.” Fenris chuckled. There was a beat before he spoke again.  
“I… am sorry your sister cannot be here.”  
“As am I,” Hesta sighed, and the illusion of home shattered before her. “You should go down there and eat, or mother will be cross that I’ve kept you from the table.”  
“Will you not join us? This is your party, after all.” It wasn’t, but she’d play along.  
“A grand party deserves a grand entrance from its gracious host. Besides, I’ve been picking at the food all day.”

Fenris watched her a moment, but then straightened and began to descend the stairs. Hesta sighed again, but despite her mood, some of the pressure ebbed away from her shoulders, and she relaxed. Their house wasn’t home yet, not for how awkwardly bare it was and for how little she and her mother had to bring with them and for the lack of all those they’d lost on their way to it, and maybe it would never be the home that Lothering was to her. But, looking down upon all the people she’d managed to gather and at the way her mother seemed _alive_ for the first time in months, she fostered some small hope that maybe, just maybe, it could be something just as good.

  



	14. winter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i was prompted for like three winter-themed things so. here.

  


Kirkwall winters were not necessarily as unyielding as the nightmarish hellscape that Hesta often described as Ferelden, but Fenris was forced to wear _boots_ , and that was reason to complain enough as it was. Shoes were annoying in the first place, wearing them while drunk was a whole other kettle of fish altogether. He was glad not to have his toes freeze off, but not having the pavement underneath his feet was as unsettling as it was difficult to get used to, especially when everything was so damn slippery.

They’d managed to make their way to Hightown from the Hanged Man in one piece, somehow, and to the Hawke estate. Hesta leaned against the open door with an unstable arm as she worked her own shoes off her tired feet.  
“You’re sure you’ll be alright walking home by yourself? You don’t need a fierce and beautiful protector to gui– whoop!”   
Fenris snorted as he watched her just _barely_  catch her balance, though for no other reason than to collapse to her knees with laughter seconds later.   
“I am sure, Hawke. Good night.” 

With no sign of her ale-ridden giggles stopping any time soon, Fenris turned and made to begin what was usually a very simple trek across Hightown. Unfortunately, he turned _just_  quickly enough for his soled feet to slide, and his dulled reflexes let what could have been a very simple trip turn into a full sprawl. His head was still catching up to everything that had happened when Hawke cursed (still laughing) and ran outside to yank him up by the arms. 

_That_  was when the laughter stopped.

“Oh, _Maker’s frosty tits_  I’ve made a terrible mistake,” Hesta said through chattering teeth, and Fenris caught sight of her bare feet in the snow, her usually pale skin now red and angry at this display of selflessness. 

Fenris sat balled up in a blanket in front of the fireplace in her bedroom, decidedly drinking _more_  wine in order to rid himself of the feeling of freezing dampness that he was becoming uncomfortably familiar with. Bodhan had rustled up a tunic and pants for him to borrow for the night, though not without gently scolding his employer as she stumbled about the house on numb feet, teeth hammering away the whole time. 

“Okay, c’mon,” she said finally, and Fenris turned to see her usual mountain of pillows rivaled only by a pile that _had_  to have consisted of every single unused blanket in the house. He didn’t see _her_  until a white hand emerged from the mountain, and gestured for him to approach. “Bring the wine,” she said, after a moment. 

Hesta couldn’t make out his grin, too busy pushing blankets this way and that with whatever limb she _felt_  like moving at the moment. She barely recognized that he’d climbed into bed until she accidentally swiped her toes along his leg and procured a sharp hiss. “Sorry! Sorry.”   
“ _Fasta vass_ , I should have run to Antiva.”   
“Ooh,” Hesta said as she wormed her way to his side - minding her feet this time, of course. “We should take a vacation. I forgot what the sun looks like.”   
“I believe it forgot you, as well,” he muttered into her hair, one arm around her waist and the other busily trying to figure out what the hell sort of blanket calamity she’d gotten them into. It wasn’t going well.  
“I’m shocked you haven’t run out of material for pale jokes yet.” She moved to kiss his jaw, running a hand over his busy arm in an attempt to settle it.   
“I’m helping Varric with his book. He needed to describe his new pale protagonist.”   
“That’s exciting. Who are they?”   
“A nosy Fereldan refugee with a talent for picking up strays and leaving a trail of chaos and fire in her way.”   
“She sounds charming.”  
“She has blocks of ice for feet.” 

Fenris turned his head for half a second to pull the edge of the thickest of the blankets over them both, close to _finally_ making sense of all the material they’d tangled into, but found himself distracted when Hesta’s face hovered just inches away from his own.   
“I don’t know about you, but I can think of _several_  ways to warm up.” 

He almost kissed her. Their lips brushed against one another and he was well on his way to pull her down onto him when her foot jerked the leg of his trousers upwards and pressed itself fully to his calf. 

She had to hold him down in the bed to keep him from going to sleep in a guest room, laughing and breathlessly promising that she was done for the night, that she wouldn’t do it again. 

Fenris stayed, but only on the condition that she wrap her legs in a blanket and keep them to herself. 

* * *

“I have a gift for you,” Hesta said, dropping a large bag on the floor and her fur-lined cloak on the back of the nearest chair. “From my mother.”

“Have you given up on knocking?” Fenris said, but there was no bite to the phrase. He swung his sword - _too low_ \- and reset.  
“When was the last time you answered a knock on your door?” She had a point. Fenris swung again. In his periphery, he saw her reach down and pull the so-called gift up from its bag, and hold it in front of her. He only saw that it was large and crimson - either a cloak or a flag. “Ta-da,” she said, and waited for him to finish his practice, wiggling the thing slightly to try and catch his attention.

After one last swing - still too low - he set his sword down and turned to face her. He thought about rubbing his sore arm before he caught the way her eyes were peering at him over the blanket (not a flag) she held in front of her, and at that point he had half a mind to pick up his sword again.  
“Your mother bought me a blanket?”  
“A quilt,” she corrected. “And she made it. I think she likes you.” Fenris snorted. “She likes flowers, if you’re inclined to return her advances.” Never content to just stand still during a conversation, Hesta threw the quilt around her own shoulders like a cape, pressing the corners to her collarbone with a parody of regal air.  
“Does that run in the family?”

She thought about the answer, but then turned to pace the room before delivering it, mindful of the broken glass still scattered along the floor. She picked up a ruined book and flipped it to a random page, examining the contents with a faux haughtiness.  
“If it did,” she said finally, “I would be bitterly disappointed by now, what with nearly four years in Kirkwall and not a single bouquet to speak of.” The book snapped closed underneath her mocking pout, and she tossed it aside. “I do like Mother’s idea of a romantic quilt, however. It’s a shame I can’t sew.”  
“I’m surprised that you are not more inclined towards grand gestures.” Part of Fenris was relieved at that, though he’d be hard pressed to admit it.  
“My gift for dramatic flair can be very deceiving.” Her pacing was rounding its way in his direction. Fenris began to see a grin cracking through the steely expression she’d been trying to maintain. “Don’t tell me you were thinking of sending flowers.”  
“I was not.”  
“And the Maker shows mercy.”

She unwrapped the crimson quilt from her shoulders as she came to a stop in front of him, only to swing it around his. Her hands lingered around his chest as she adjusted the mass of fabric, which he noticed was still slightly warm where she’d been holding onto it. Fenris knew that she was close enough for him to simply lean forward and kiss that mischievous look clean off her face, if he wanted to.

And part of him _did_ want to. Very much so, in fact, and she probably knew it, or else she would not continue flirting with him quite so shamelessly. Not to say he didn’t enjoy it, or that he didn’t return her efforts.  
“Give your mother my thanks,” he blurted out instead. Hesta’s hands moved back to resume their usual place on her hips, and he regret his cowardice immediately.  
“So I shall.” There was a beat before she moved to leave, grabbing her cloak as she moved past it. “Let me know if you’re still cold, I’m sure a mutual effort can fix that little problem right up.”

She threw another undeterred smirk over her shoulder before disappearing into his foyer and consequently, out the door. Fenris only caught the fact that he was grinning after she was already gone.

* * *

 

Hesta watched Fenris pile a third scarf about his neck with wide, amused eyes. The worst Kirkwall winter they’d encountered in six years, and she still found herself bearing it with only a light cloak, rationing her remaining stories of southern Ferelden frosts and blizzards to combat her friends’ complaining. 

“It’s not _that_  cold out today,” she offered, and got a stuffy glare in return, which made her laugh. “Alright, alright. I get it. Shutting my mouth.” 

She was correct in saying that it wasn’t _that_  cold in Kirkwall, but once they began to climb Sundermount, it was quite a bit of a different story. His mood continued to decline the higher up they got, and between Varric’s tireless complaining and Hawke and Merrill’s joking around, he was left with little more than a desire to turn around, throw himself into a fire, and wait for Spring. 

“Ancestors, elf. You haven’t said a word since morning. Everything alright up there?” Fenris bit back a harsh comment, and instead settled for sounding slightly more irate than normal.  
“I am fine.”   
“Don’t mind his _frosty_  disposition,” Hesta interjected, rather unceremoniously. “He tends to give the _cold shoulder.”_ At that, he drew his hand to his temple. Her terrible puns had stopped grating on his nerves long ago, but between the headache the wind gave him and Merrill’s distractable nature keeping them out in the open far longer than necessary, civility was hard to come by.  
“Hawke.”   
“That’s quite an _icy_  tone. _Snow_  way to talk to –”   
“ _Hawke,”_ he barked, tense, _too loud_  for what he intended, and then their eyes met. He couldn’t read her face, but he regret snapping nonetheless.   
“Alright,” was all she said. “Moving on, then.” 

Fenris meant to apologize once they set up camp and got near a fire, but she disappeared before he had the chance. Neither Merill nor Varric knew where or when she’d gone off, but even she couldn’t have gone far in the freezing night.

With a heavy sigh, he piled on his scarves, and set out to take a look around. 

He’d been right - she wasn’t far. Still within sight of their camp, sitting on a jutting rock. He approached her quietly, the crunching of the snow beneath his feet just barely announcing his presence.   
“I am sorry for snapping earlier. You were not at fault.”   
“Apology accepted,” she said simply, and pat the spot next to her. “Care to brave the cold for a minute?” He didn’t, but he still felt guilty even if she didn’t seem like she’d been offended in the first place, and so he sat down. Knowing his distaste for all things winter, Hesta scoot closer and draped her cloak around both of them before offering the flask she’d apparently been holding.   
“What is it?”  
“I’m not entirely sure, but it’ll warm you up.”   
“You’ve been drinking a liquid that you can’t identify?”  
“If it makes you feel any better, I put a little bit of honey in it. So we know it’s at least one part honey.” As much as he was _not_  inclined to drink mysterious liquids, he _was_  cold. 

He nearly spit the liquid out, shoving the flask right back at Hawke while she laughed.   
“That was _disgusting_.”   
“But I bet you’re less freezing now!” He was, but what he was sure was a toxic concoction with a little honey for flavor had nothing to do with it. “Maybe we’ll go somewhere sunny for a bit next winter,” she said, and he couldn’t tell if she was serious or not. “I’m sure Isabela stole an island and forgot about it at some point.”   
“I wouldn’t doubt that.”   
“So you’re done being grouchy for the night?”   
“I make no such promise,” he said, and then suddenly found himself yanked into a kiss by at least two of his three scarves. She tasted like shitty liquor but he could feel her smiling and he couldn’t held but return the sentiment.  
“And what about now?” she said once she managed to pull herself away from him, though her face was still close enough for him to feel her breath.  
“I am still … cold to the idea.”

Hesta laughed, but he didn’t wait for her to finish to kiss her again, liquor taste and cold be damned.

  



	15. beautiful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> happy valentine's day, ya saps.

  


It took several months for Fenris to stop flinching any time either Hawke or Isabela so much as laid eyes on him, let alone offered a compliment. Ghosts of lingering touches and unwelcome whispers were hard to shake for longer than a night or two of feeling bold and free, and always returned in force. He’d lived as an ornament for too long to rid himself of it so soon, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. _It is nothing_ , he kept telling himself, and eventually, he was able to believe that. All just a game; they wanted little more than entertainment, at best some company for an empty bed. **  
**

He was content in believing this until the day his half-drunk mouth spilled the story of his escape in front of Hesta like some wine that had gone sour. It was hard to look at her - he wasn’t sure if it was a servant’s habit or how intense her eyes had always been - and so he kept his gaze focused on cracks in the floor and the lyrium shredding its way through his skin. He didn’t even know why he was telling her the story in the first place, blaming his sudden openness on a combination of drink and her incessant prying. _Just a game_ , he reminded himself in a pause. No one had cared before. It meant nothing.

Though, she could have fooled him. When Fenris finally looked up at her - mostly to see if she was still listening, considering Hawke wasn’t one to stay silent for so long - he was met a softness in her face he’d never seen before. And for just a moment, he felt… well, he _felt_. He wasn’t sure what it was short of a hot coal sitting in his stomach, but it kept him awake that night far longer than he wished it would. Fenris slowly followed that feeling all the way to Hesta’s bed, and left it burned. Danarius had gnarled his body with lyrium and his mind with ghosts - there was nothing attractive about a husk like that.

However, Isabela did not stop flirting with him, still playing games that Hawke long abandoned in order to shoulder disasters, one after another. There was comfort in Isabela’s shallow compliments; he never believed them, but at least it meant that the pirate was in good spirits and more likely to help him cheat at Wicked Grace.

Three years later, Danarius’s ugly heart beat its last in his mangled hands and he saw himself a monster in Varania’s eyes. He’d have killed her, too, if not for Hawke and Varric’s pleading.

Hesta had followed him home, and Fenris was sure that it would be the end of his comforts in Kirkwall. Anders had been treading on thin ice for years - there would be no room for the abomination _and_ the monster who nearly murdered the last of his own blood; not in the eyes of the woman who had all hers drained against her will. He was alone, and by his own doing. Such was the price of freedom.

But, when he looked at her, Fenris was met with a softness he had tried his best to forget.  
“Congratulations,” she said. “You’re a free man.”

She was covered in blood, but she was beautiful and radiant and filled with _pride_ when she looked at him, and for just a moment he saw himself the way she did. He kissed her when the stars in her eyes shone too brightly for him to bear, and three years suddenly seemed an eternity.

There were few comforts he treasured more than lying in his drafty mansion (his, no longer borrowed but rightfully stolen), half-drunk and wrapped in blankets by the firelight. He’d learned how to read well enough to indulge Hawke when she wanted him to, having flattered him into reading aloud repeatedly each time they had a moment to themselves. Normally, she’d fall asleep by the end of a chapter, but she stayed perfectly awake next to him, head propped on her wrist. He turned to ask her if she wanted him to keep going, but her absent smile caught him too off-guard to even begin to word the question.  
“What?” he asked instead.  
“Distracted by how handsome you are.” She’d been staring at him, nearly glowing, unrestrained by Aggregio and three years’ worth of pent up affection.

Hesta laughed against his mouth when he sat up to kiss her, book chucked haphazardly to the side. He could finally put words to the gleam in her gaze - she looked at him like he was _beautiful_ , she always had. And, for the first time, he believed her.

  



	16. stitches

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tumblr prompt fill for, "hey, have you seen the -- oh."

“Fenris, behind you!”

Fenris turned his head too late. Hesta's shoulder rammed into his, pushing him out of the way just in time for the mace to smash into her side with a loud  _crunch_. The impact threw her to the ground and she rolled several feet, stopping only when her back slammed into a wall. The slaver lifted his weapon over his head again, but before he could swing, found his neck riddled with Bianca’s bolts. 

The body fell with a pathetic gurgle, only barely louder than Hawke’s groaning as she struggled to her feet. Varric showed a tinge of obvious concern as he placed Bianca back in her holster.   
“You alright there, Hawke? That sounded nasty.”   
“Maker’s tits, what do they  _feed_  people in Tevinter?”   
Fenris began moving towards her before he was even fully upright, but Hesta waved him off. She used the wall to straighten herself, her expression a caricature of discomfort. Fenris scowled in her direction, though not out of anger.   
“You are  _hurt_.”   
“Please, my little brother did worse when he was  _six_. I’ll walk it off.” Aveline snorted as she adjusted her gauntlets.   
“If you’re that used to taking punches, maybe you should learn to dodge. Some of my recruits could teach you.” Hesta released a bark of a laugh, rubbing sorely at her ribs.  
“Your recruits?  You mean the ones getting trained by my  _dog_? Get off.” 

Fenris watched her jog past him, making towards a body she thought would yield the most lucrative reward. He watched her bend and rummage, straighten again. Listened to her poke and prod at Aveline and Varric, to the harshness of her laughter. Nothing seemed out of place; she was not tense or winded, did not limp or cringe. 

Perhaps she  _did_  just need to walk it off. 

* * *

Hesta could solidly say she learned three things in Ostagar: how to hold her liquor, the extent of things men would believe if flirted with, and how to treat her own injuries. She had gotten plenty of practice during the attacks, and even more during her employ under Meeran, hiding her wounds from mother and sister both. 

Everything was laid out before her: a needle and thread, a cloth with warm water, bandages, some whiskey (for disinfecting  _and_  the pain). It wasn’t much, but it would tide her over until she got to Anders. She stripped of her armor rather unceremoniously, letting the dented plate clatter to the floor, followed by the mail, and her tunic; each layer increasingly bloodied. In the mirror, the wound looked worse than she thought - not as much blood, perhaps, but enough to run down her side and pool slightly at her belt. It was the  _bruising_ , already black in places and sickly yellow where it wasn’t  _yet_. She took a swig from her bottle, and then got to work. 

She grew increasingly light-headed with every stitch, her hands shaking while she tied the bloodied thread, her sewing surprisingly neat for having been self-administered, but certainly not perfect.   
“Bodhan?" she said, hearing footsteps. "Have you seen my –” Hesta turned towards the door, careful not to move too quickly and sway her own balance, but instead of her manservant’s jolly yell, she found herself faced with a  _very_  cross elf. “ _Oh_.”   
“You said it was fine.” Hawke swallowed, one hand holding her marred flesh together and the other still clutching the needle.  
“Well, to be fair, I  _have_  had worse. So in comparison, this is fine.” 

Fenris scowled as he crossed to her, and dropped to his knees. He rid himself of his gauntlets and took the needle from Hawke’s hands- surprisingly gentle considering the ferocity in his eyes- and went to finish the mending. Hesta watched him until he cut the thread and moved to grab one of the last clean rags, dipped it in warm water, and began wiping the blood off her skin. He only revealed more scars as he worked - claw marks, tears, slices - all too visible in the firelight. The worst, he knew, lay across her abdomen and dared to pose as the apex of her worth. 

“It really is okay,” she tried to assure him. Fenris shook his head.   
“It is not. Your rib is fractured at  _best_ , if not shattered entirely.”  
“I never said I didn’t like it a little rough.” The rag was laid down in exchange for bandages, which he was careful not to wrap too tightly. There was little room for humor in the elf’s head, not when his throat was so dry,  _burning_ with the knowledge that the hit was  _his_  to take. His ribs should have been shattered, pressing on his insides, his skin riddled with thread and black bruising and blood - not hers. 

“You should not fight my battles for me.”   
“Hm?”  
“Those slavers were after  _me._ They don’t care who they kill in the process.”   
“Are you saying that the great Champion of Kirkwall could be felled by a mere  _slaver_? Tsk. And in my own home.”  
Fenris’s hands slowed as he tucked the last of the bandage in. With a sigh and, much to Hawke’s surprise, he leaned his forehead into the crook of her neck. His hands fell to his lap, useless, unsure, just as he felt.  
“I am  _saying_  it takes one bad hit, Hawke.” 

Hesta adjusted herself with a hum and Fenris closed his eyes against her skin as soon as her fingers found their way to his hair, running softly through the silvery locks.   
“You’re fighting  _my_  battles for me.”  
“The battles of an entire city are not yours to face alone.” He felt her snort.  
“The city seems to think so.”  
“I disagree.” She felt his hands on her hips before his arms wrapped loosely around her, his fingertips pressing into her, careful not to pull her in, not to bruise her further. Moments ago, he had fully intended to argue about it, but the weight in his head became too great too quickly, and the only comfort seemed to be the warmth of her skin against his forehead, her fingers in his hair. And she was too tired to be defensive; light-headed and weakened and  _disturbingly_  hungry. She could attribute some of it at least in part to having perhaps one or two more swigs of whiskey than she actually  _needed_ , but blood loss could take credit for the rest. So they sat, in silence, uncharacteristically placated, strangely gentle. 

“I am not trying to fight  _for_  you Fenris, but I do want to fight  _with_  you." Fenris tensed against her, having replayed the image of the mace making impact too many times in the last several seconds. He said nothing. With a sigh, Hesta let her hands fall to his shoulders, one sliding carefully over to lift his chin up and allow him to face her.   
“You look almost  _impressively_  cross right now. I wonder if Varric wants to write that into the book he’s lying about not writing.” Fenris chuckled despite himself, though it was quick to fade.   
“Your priorities never cease to amaze me.”   
“I like to keep things exciting.”  
“Perhaps a little  _too_ exciting.” She smiled at him, and he sighed. They fell into another brief silence as Fenris tried to gather his thoughts. 

“So.” So much for having a moment.   
“So?”  
“What now?”  
“You need to be  _careful_ , Hawke. I –” He stopped himself short, unsure of where he meant for that sentence to go.   
“You… love pudding? Need a back rub?”  
“I won’t lose you. Not again.”

When Hesta kissed him, she ignored the whining in her side. She knew only his hands on her hips and her mouth against his, bruises and scars and bleeding be damned. She couldn’t weave words like Varric could, or even make sense of her own thoughts half the time, but she hoped he knew what she meant. She hoped he knew that she’d walk to Tevinter and burn it to the ground  _herself_  if he so much as asked, let alone take a stray mace to the side. She would free every slave and wring every Magister’s neck, she’d bleed anyone who ever did him wrong towards a slow death.  
  
And, maybe, she would consider being careful.

 


	17. quiet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt fill for, "forehead touching."

Fenris woke with a start, his heart beating its way out of his chest and his throat raw from screaming. His eyes had not adjusted to the dark yet, all he was was  _black_ and the space smelled unfamiliar and there was another body in the bed and – 

The arm that wrapped about his waist did not have the forcefulness of a magister. By the time he was pulled closer to its owner, his thoughts had unscrambled enough to remember that Tevinter was years behind him, that he was in Kirkwall,  _had_  been in Kirkwall for six years on the morrow.   
“Nightmare?” The voice next to him stirred the silence, heavy with sleep. His eyes adjusted enough to make out Hawke’s figure - she was nearly  _glowing_ where the moonlight hit her. Being exceptionally pale made her, at the very least, easy to find at night. To an elf, anyway. 

Fenris made some noise that had started as an agreement but lost itself just as soon as it began. Hawke pulled herself up onto her elbow, her other hand leaving his body to rub at her eyes. “Mmkay,” she muttered, “C’mere.” He knew this routine well. They rearranged themselves until she could wedge an arm underneath his neck, brought her hand around to stroke his hair. With their foreheads touching, they stared at the ceiling. “D’you wanna talk about it?” Her words still slurred together, and he was sure that if he looked at her, her eyes would be closed.   
“No.”   
“Fair,” she said, interrupted by a yawn. “We should do something fun tomorrow. Just the two of us.”   
“What did you have in mind?”   
“Hm. We could go… take Nug out to Sundermount? Hunt some slavers? Go swimming?”   
“Swimming, Hawke?”  
“I’m still sleepy,” she grumbled defensively. “I wouldn’t be opposed to staying in bed all day, either.”   
“Didn't you sleep all day  _yesterday_?”  
“You have a better idea? I’m open to suggestions.” Fenris found her other hand resting at the bottom of her ribcage, and took it in his own. Half-asleep or not, she strung their fingers together immediately, and gave his hand a squeeze. 

“I can’t think of anything,” he said, after a time.   
“Have you ever been firefly fishing?”  
“No.”  
“Dad used to take us when we were kids. We can find something to do until the sun sets and then go in the woods. Fill up a few jars, hand them out to some kids in Lowtown.”   
“… Alright.”  
“Really? I’m surprised.”  
“It sounds… quiet,” was all he said in response. He knew they both needed that. He knew she agreed when she turned her head to kiss his cheek, and sighed contentedly.   
  
“Will you be able to sleep?” she whispered. He was already losing her to her own exhaustion.    
“I believe so.”  
“You’re not lying to me?”  
“No.”   
“Okay. Wake me if you need me.”   
“I will.”  
“Promise?”   
“Of course, Hawke.” She fell asleep with one hand still in his hair and the other locked with his. He watched her for a time, until his mind settled and memories of hands against his neck were drowned out by the brushing of her lashes against his cheek. He fell asleep again before the sun rose, content to be subjected to a dreamless rest and ready to sleep most of the afternoon away. 

Unfortunately, both of them woke with a startled yelp when Sandal made something explode in the basement.   
“Enchantment!” came the faint yell, muffled by distance. After a time and, after her heart settled, Hawke found it in herself to laugh.   
“So much for a quiet afternoon.”  


	18. lost in translation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Poetry is what is lost in translation," prompt fill for Tumblr.

Fenris poured himself a third glass - or was it fourth? Hard to tell, given he’d drank them all quick enough for the chill of his mansion to finally leave his bones. He was never sure how Hesta could walk around barefoot and with a poor excuse for a shirt and claim to be perfectly fine, but there she was again, this time rummaging through the books on the shelves that weren’t completely ruined by dust or blood or blade. 

“What exactly are you looking for?”   
“Something fun,” she said, and he smirked. It was a relief to hear her sound so much like the Hawke he’d met six years prior. It had been a long time since she had. “Ah, here’s one. Tevinter love poems and -- would you look at that? Translated into Common for simple village folk like me.” She poised herself and cleared her throat, though Fenris couldn’t take his eyes off the half-full glass she was holding in the same hand she was on the verge of gesturing with. “Ahem.  _Love me faithfully, my loyalty, heart and mind, I am closest to the..._ remote _? Whoever loves so much, turns on the wheel._ ”

Hesta continued to stare at the book, her expression gone from amused to incredulous. “You know,” she said, “this explains a lot about you.”   
“Let me see that,” he said, and pushed himself from the chair to meet her in the middle. She handed him the book without protest, and pointed to the passage from which she had just read. 

“ _Ama me fideliter, fidem meam nota, de corde totaliter et ex mente tota, sum presentialiter alens in remota; quisquis amat taliter, volvitur in rota.”_  
“Ah, yes,” Hesta nodded. “You’re right. How could I have missed that?”   
“Love me faithfully,” he translated, insistent, “Taking heed of my loyalty, with all your heart, with all your mind. I am closest to you when I am far away; whoever loves like this rides on the wheel of fortune.” 

He’d expected another clever quip, but got none. When Fenris looked up, he was met with a look he’d never _quite_  seen before - at least, not at such a close proximity. Before he could put words to it, she cracked another shit-eating grin and bumped his hip with her own.   
“Shit translation, then. Thank the Maker I’ve got you,” she said, and began to move back towards the half-full bottle of wine he’d left behind. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i plugged a latin love poem through google translate for this


	19. judge and gavel both

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt fill for "justice is blind"

“You’re quiet, Hawke.” Hesta grunted a response, her hands busy disarming a plate trap. For a small group of raiders, they sure tried to be thorough in the ruins; not that it mattered in the end.  **  
**

“I’m concentrating,” she said, standing only with the satisfying click that signified the disarming of a pressure plate. Varric was the first to step over it, followed by Fenris. “I don’t feel like getting blown up on a fetch job for petty cash.”  
“I wouldn’t call a magistrate’s reward _petty_ ,” Bethany said, smoothing her skirt. “We could use it, Sister.” Hesta peered over her shoulder, glad to see that her sister looked as uneasy as she felt. She couldn’t stop thinking about the elf outside. His anger was too familiar.  
“Do you think the magistrates have pools of gold coins they dive into every morning, just to remind themselves how rich they are?”   
“I would think they’d do it before bed.”

By the time they found Lia, all four were covered in more spider blood and entrails than they cared to think about. Not the best sight for a scared little girl, most likely, but she stood relieved all the same.  
“Can you please get me out of here? I just want to go home,” she pleaded. Hesta stared at the girl, unblinking.  
“Does she look not-dead to anyone else?”   
“Your father told us you’d been killed,” Bethany explained. “Are you alright?”

She was, thankfully, and impressively collected as she gave her story. Tales of demons and a man who went from violent to pitiful in sheer seconds would have sounded extraordinary anywhere outside of Kirkwall. Hesta felt all six eyes on her back as Lia’s footsteps receded into the dark of the ruins behind them, leaving Kelder’s life in her battle-worn hands. She thought of the thirty sovereigns she and Beth had stashed away, of the twenty more they needed to fund Varric’s expedition. She thought of the elf outside again.

Her own mother had looked at her with that same anger, once.

“Can’t we take _one_ normal job?” she said as she turned to face the rest of her party. Varric laughed, pausing a moment from reloading Bianca.   
“Your repertoire doesn’t exactly scream _normal._ ”   
“I agree,” Fenris said. Hesta reckoned it was the first time he’d opened his mouth all day. Not the chatty type, it seemed, but she was certain she heard him laugh when she made a joke about one of the spiders earlier.   
“I don’t want to hear it from the one who lied about being Anso’s smuggled lyrium and nearly got us all killed by Tevinter slavers.”  
“She’s got a point, elf.”   
“Would you have come if I had been honest?”   
“Only if you’d sent along a portrait so we knew you were pretty.” He laughed again, contagious enough to make the rest of them smile. She reckoned that twice in one day was a personal record for both of them.

“Perhaps if your expedition proves lucrative, I’ll commission one.” Hesta opened her mouth with a joke at the tip of her tongue, but Bethany reached out and turned her older sister back around towards the door.  
“Are we forgetting the fugitive, Sister?” Ah. There it was.  
“That’s what I was hoping for,” Hesta sighed. “Let’s get this over with, then.”

They marched on only to find that Kelder… had not been possessed. Bethany made sure of it. His words made them both ill, the magistrate’s actions even more so. Fenris offered to finish the man if the Hawkes wouldn’t, but… there was something _wrong_ about that. Hesta sighed before looking at him, pointedly avoiding her sister’s eyes. Varric had said it outside: _there is no magistrate in Kirkwall who would punish a human for crimes against elves_. She had not wanted to be this man’s judge - she was a mercenary, sure. A scoundrel, even, but not the type to want to hold someone’s fate in her hands. 

And yet, there she was. She felt the weight of her coin purse in her bag. The weight of Lia’s father’s eyes in her head.

Kelder fell with a sickening gurgle. Hesta wiped her dagger against her thigh before sheathing it again.   
“Magistrate isn’t going to be happy,” Varric grumbled. Somehow, he didn’t seem very upset about that.

Lia’s father looked relieved when they met him outside. The guard, not so much. Hesta still felt uneasy about the whole thing - killing Kelder was the right thing to do, she knew _that_ , but she had done the job of a magistrate. A blade for hire was meant to dispense someone else’s justice, not decide it. She almost regret getting involved when Bethany placed a hand on her shoulder. For the first time since leaving the ruins, the older Hawke looked her sister in the eye.  
“Stop smiling at me like that,” Hesta said, pushing Bethany away, but she had already started grinning too.  
“You’re a go-od person,” the younger sang.   
“Great, now I _have_ to start a bar fight tonight. There go my plans to stay in and do my reading on Orlesian tea gardens.”

She _definitely_ heard it that time. Hesta, Varric, and Bethany all turned to stare at Fenris, who still wore a lingering smirk from laughing - the third time that day.

“ _You_ think I’m _funny_ ,” she said, and that was enough to open the floodgates. They all laughed, temporarily free of the day’s burdens. Hesta let Kelder’s blood seep from her, into the ground; she let herself be happy for the distraction and good company.

Hesta was a consequence, she knew that well enough. It was the same when she’d been a mercenary, too. She could only hope her days of being judge and gavel both were numbered; there were some burdens her shoulders were just too tired to bear.  


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt fill for "bite off more than you can chew" and it's a mess

Hesta had worn the same mischievous, suspicious grin ever since they started playing Wicked Grace. She’d waited very, very patiently for the final round (always marked by Merrill yawning before the cards were dealt), deflected no less than three questions about her expression, and now was simply waiting for Varric to gather the cards one last time in order to strike. 

“I have a proposition,” she said once the dwarf began shuffling, and was immediately met with a chorus of, ‘oh, no’s and ‘maker why’s. Reaching past the sticks up everyone’s asses, Hesta bent down and pulled a small box from her bag, which she then set in the middle of the table. Inside was a pepper, small but violently red and certainly a terrible idea on all fronts. “Loser eats this.” Isabela started laughing first - Hesta had a feeling this wasn’t the pirate’s first encounter with what was supposedly a borderline-illegal export from Quanandar (Orana had helped her find it).  
“Why do you even _have_ that?” Isabela choked out.   
“It’s a long story that ends with a kitchen fire and me giving Orana a hefty advance on her pay. Are we in or not?”   
“You’ve suggested worse things,” Sebastian groaned, setting his chin on his palm.   
“It’ll be a good change from watching you lose money,” Varric added, very nearly avoiding a kick underneath the table.

The game was over quickly - Isabela was so determined _not_ to eat the damn pepper that her cheating ushered it into a sprint. Hesta had taken a pretty big gamble on giving the loser this punishment, considering how often _she_ was the loser of such contests, but the stars aligned in her favor that night. For just a moment it looked like Sebastian would be the one to suffer the pepper, but a last-second twist of fate turned all eyes to Fenris. Varric near turned giddy.   
“Shit, nobody’s going to believe this.” Aveline threw the dwarf a sideways glance.   
“Who are you _telling_ ?” Nobody cared, unfortunately, each member of their circle engrossed in watching Fenris lift the pepper gingerly from its box and hold it in his palm with the same look of distaste he usually wore whenever Anders opened his mouth. He looked at Hesta for some means to escape her idea of fun, but she merely winked and sat back in her chair, grinning ear to ear all the while. With a sigh, he brought the thing to his mouth and in one split-second bad decision, bit it right to the tip. Everyone froze, scared to _blink_ in case they missed the reaction of a century until... nothing. He chewed and swallowed the damn thing without so much as a cough.

Visibly disappointed, Varric began to gather the cards back into a deck, and those few with drink still left in their mugs began to turn their attention to remedying that situation.

One by one, everyone began to move their separate ways. Aveline said something about checking up on Donnic’s patrol, leaving Hesta (who was too tipsy to be pouty about her sabotage) and Fenris (who hadn’t yet said a word) to walk back to Hightown by themselves.   
“You know,” she sighed, “I was expecting a spicier reaction than that.” Fenris rolled his eyes, but that only made her laugh.   
“You said Orana started a kitchen fire?”   
“No, I said there _was_ a kitchen fire and I had to pay Orana _because_ of it. Who started it is completely irrelevant.”   
“Meaning that you started it.”   
“Serah, I will not incriminate myself.” Meaning that she most _definitely_ started the fire. He’d have to ask Bodhan for details - Orana was still too kind to her employer to divulge any embarrassing happenings around the house. Must be a dwarven thing to be incomparable gossips.

Hesta had taken to grinning absently as they walked, only a little surprised when Fenris decided to take her hand in his own. “My, my, he grows ever bolder. Whatever will the De Launcets think?”   
“It was good to see you enjoy yourself tonight.”   
“You say that as if I don’t always.”   
“Not lately.” Something changed in her face then, but for just a moment. She squeezed his hand.   
“Brooding looks better on you anyways.”

Fenris stopped walking, and she let him use their linked hands to slowly swing her until she stood in front of him. “You’re acting weird,” she said, knowing that her smile gave away the fact that she didn’t mind at all.   
“Pot,” he said as he traded holding her hand for pressing her close by the small of her back. “Kettle.”   
“Black,” she finished, flicking the edge of his collar. She just barely got the word out before his lips pressed against hers, though, and she found herself immediately melting against him.

Fenris was laughing as soon as the heels of her palms pressed against his shoulders and shoved him roughly away. Hesta fell into a crouch against a wall right then and there, caught between pressing her hands over her mouth or fanning herself.   
“You _ass_ ,” she hissed. “Oh, Andraste’s flaming panties I think a rage demon shit in my mouth, _fucking shit_ .” He walked over to try and help her up, but she swatted his hands away, the involuntary tears already spilling from her eyes. “I _hate_ you for this -- oh, fuck _me_ ! But -- wait,” she paused in order to take a breath, glad for the cool night air against her burning tongue, “I’m glad to see you still have the -- _fuck_ \-- the _hots_ for me.”

She lived to regret that pun, at least.  

After she let him help her to her feet, Fenris delivered the Champion to her house staff with a self-satisfied grin on his face. If she hadn’t been pouting before, she certainly was then, with a hunk of bread hanging out of her mouth and a glass of milk in her hands. Despite his grave offense against her, at the very least she let him sit next to her on the bench in the kitchen, from where he could see the remnants of black scorch marks over the stove.

For all his effort in containing his laughter, the dam broke then and there. Hesta stared at him, her expression softening considerably the longer he tried to regain composure. Even she couldn’t maintain her pout once she caught him wiping a stray tear from his eyes in his fit. They were both left laughing, both forgetting _why_ long before they ran out of breath and were left slumped against each other with nothing but stray giggles and a vague ache in each of their stomachs.

She wished their eyes never met in that warm silence, but at least this time she was within arm’s reach of more bread.


	21. the great splash war of 9:31 dragon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> movie quote prompt fill

Easily distracted as the three of them were, Hesta, Merrill, and Isabela had found a little path down to the water off the Wounded Coast and immediately decided to delay their return to Kirkwall for an afternoon of good old ocean fun. Fenris didn’t protest the idea, but he also didn’t know what to do, exactly, aside from stand awkwardly to the side and shake the sand out from between his toes. In their excitement, the women had ditched their armor while running to the water and wasted no time in engaging in an intense splashing showdown. Impromptu rules were quickly established and yelled over the crashing of the waves and before long, there seemed to be a fierce competition.

In the meantime, Fenris had found a cluster of boulders in the water to perch himself on, all the while trying his best to avoid catching one of Isabela’s _looks._ She’d definitely yelled to him about coming to join them, but he knew very well that her only goal was to make him as uncomfortable as possible, and there had been enough of that on dry land as it was. He distracted himself with the ocean instead - he’d never realized he missed it before. It felt familiar, but not in a bad way. The ocean was probably one of his only fonder memories from Tevinter.

But before his mind could wander to darker places, Hesta jogged over, looking like a right mess. Her dark hair was wet and tangled in places, a bit of what was hopefully seaweed caught in one of the locks, and the dark pigment she wore around her eyes was smeared and dripping. She looked like an ocean nightmare, but there was something about the whole affair that was very quintessentially _Hawke_. It was almost charming.

“Are you sitting by yourself because you don’t like the water or because you’re afraid Merrill will take you down in the splash war?” she said, plucking the seaweed from her hair before trying to wrangle it into a bun.   
“I didn’t pack my swimming suit. My ocean experience just isn’t complete without it.”    
“Oh well. _Water_ you gonna do?” Fenris chuckled. Hesta, satisfied with his reaction, hopped up onto the rock next to him. He hadn’t really realized that the woman had her summer tan until she lifted the hem of her shirt to wipe at her face and her stomach was actually somehow even paler than the rest of her.   
  
Not about to get caught staring, Fenris, turned back towards the water. “Not going back out to the fray?” he said, nodding towards what looked like a very intense showdown between Merrill and Isabela.   
“Me? No. I’m an unfortunate casualty of the Great Splash Battle of 9:31 Dragon. Plus, Kirkwall’s never been pretty. This spot might be a Tal-Vashoth graveyard tomorrow, for all we know. I wanted to take in the sights.”   
“An interesting prediction.”   
"You know how it is. Life moves pretty fast, so if you don't stop and look around every once in a while, you could miss it.” It was an interesting sentiment from someone he’d never known to sit still. “And you looked pathetic sitting out here by yourself.”

Fenris turned to respond, but whatever snarky thing he had at the tip of his tongue dissolved when he caught her grinning at him. She was kind enough to give him a moment to collect himself.  
“I suppose I’m in your debt once more, then,” he choked out. Hesta snorted and turned her attention back to the water. There was a sudden shift in her demeanor, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it calm.  
“If you ask me, it’s your turn to collect your dues from the world. I’m just happy to be along for the ride.”

Her calm washed over him too, in that moment, and only later, long after it dissipated, did he realize that for the first time since coming to Kirkwall, he’d felt safe in that moment. And, as far as the world and its debts was concerned, he had a hunch that Hawke would be payment in kind.


End file.
